Did you know the fastest growing plant in the world can grow nearly a metre a day?
It won’t come as a surprise to many, and particularly those who have grown it, bamboo is the fastest growing plant in the world. Thick rhizomes (underground plant stems) store energy produced by mature canes to give the emerging shoots an energy-rich, speedy start in life.
In optimum conditions, some species can grow a staggering 91cm a day.
The tallest bamboo species is Dendrocalamus giganteus, which can grow up to 30metres tall.
Bamboo is of course famous as the diet of giant pandas. A panda must consume up to 38kg of bamboo a day to survive
How does bamboo grow so fast?
Bamboos are well adapted for fast vertical growth.
Most trees grow slowly because their solid stems support vertical growth with concentric rings of woody cells, but bamboo stems are hollow tubes, which are very strong and use fewer resources to reach an equivalent height. Their stems also have two distinct zones of cell division, called meristems.
Those at the stem nodes (the rings along the canes) form leaves, while those between the nodes produce cells that contribute to vertical growth. These cells rapidly inflate by taking up water, elongating so that long, tubular internodes form quickly. The structural rigidity of the tubular stern means that woody reinforcement can begin well behind the growing tip, so elongation can be very rapid.
Did you know bamboo has a number of uses? It has been used as a building material, made into a fabric and made musical instruments. Bamboo shoots are also used in traditional Japanese, Chinese and Indonesian cuisine.