JNTBGRI Bambusetum:Silver Jubilee

JNTBGRI Bambusetum:Silver Jubilee

The Bambusetum at Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute (JNTBGRI), Palode, Thiruvananthapuram, India [formerly Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute (TBGRI)] has completed its 25th year of establishment on 21 May 2012. The day was celebrated with a presentation by K C Koshy on its history followed by a bamboo sapling planting in the Bambusetum by the Institute Director, Dr P G Latha.

JNTBGRI Bambusetum maintains diverse bamboo species and their different hereditary lines along with records of their pheno-events such as growth, flowering, fruiting, death and details on progenies. Started in 1987, the bamboo collection has grown into the largest in India spread out in an area of 6.59 hectares of hilly terrain land, harbouring 954 accessions belonging to 69 species and 1 variety under 15 genera in addition to 12 hybrids produced from the Institute. Species from India (the Western Ghats, North Eastern region, Andamans), South East Asia, Japan and South America are represented in the Bambusetum. It contains curious species like the giant bamboo Dendrocalamus giganteus Wall. ex Munro, the South American Guadua angustifolia Kunth, rare zig zag bamboo Dinochloa macclellandii (Munro) Kurz, climbing bamboos Dinochloa andamanica Kurz and Melocalamus  compactiflorus (Kurz) Bentham and many more. The live collection opens a wonderful world of bamboos to the visitors.

The genera and number of species represented are: Bambusa (14), Cephalostachyum (1), Dendrocalamus (17), Dinochloa (3), Gigantochloa (4), Guadua (1), Melocalamus (1), Melocanna (1), Ochlandra (13), Phyllostachys (4), Pseudoxytenanthera (6), Sasa (1), Schizostachyum (1), Shibataea (1) and Thyrsostachys (1).

The Bambusetum is very supportive in addressing the needs of the state and enhancing scientific knowledge on various bamboo species. It is functioning as a demo plot of various species,  as a nursery supplying planting materials of required species, as a field laboratory to carryout scientific observations such as studying morphological characters useful in taxonomy, determining the flowering cycles, conducting breeding trials and thus,  paving ways for multidisciplinary studies on bamboos. It also demonstrates how a live collection of bamboos can be used to disseminate interest in various aspects of an economically important group of plants by involving researchers, farmers and local communities. It is useful to all who are concerned with conservation of genetic resources of bamboos. Its detailed history and inventory of its collections are available (Koshy, 2010).

Koshy, K.C.2010. Bamboos at TBGRI.Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute, Palode, Thiruvananthapuram, India.pp104.

Largest leaved Old World bamboo

Ochlandra ebracteata Raizada & Chatterjee is the largest leaved Old World bamboo

Neurolepis elata (Kunth) Pilger [=N. nobilis (Munro) Pilger] and N. glomerata Swallen, found in the New World possess the largest leaf blades in the grass family. During our bamboo explorations in the forests of Kerala we came across a few clumps of the reed bamboo Ochlandra Thwaites with unusually large leaves. This prompted us to draw a comparison of the leaves of Ochlandra with those of Neurolepis Meissner. 

We estimated the leaf area from the linear measurements of leaves (= leaf blades) using the equation A = 0.905 LB, where L = length of leaf and B = breadth of a point midway along the length. Linear measurements were gathered from two sources, (1) from the online World Grass flora and (2) from field i.e the Ochlandra growing regions of Kerala.  From the former the length and breadth of leaf blades of all bamboo species having 20 cm or more in length were collected. For the latter field surveys were conducted for the collection of larger leaves and their measurements were noted discarding the length of acumen. The leaf area of each species was estimated using the higher values of L and B in the case of measurements obtained from online World Grass flora (as the aim was to find leaves with maximum areas) and from actual length and breadth of larger leaves in the case of natural stands. From the above data we prepared a list of species in descending order of their leaf areas.

The largest leaf blade collected by us in Kerala is that of Ochlandra ebracteata Raizada & Chatterjee which measured 63.1cm in length and 14.5 cm in breadth with a total area of 828.02 cm². Thus O. ebracteata represents the species with the sixth largest leaf among world bamboos and the largest in the Old World though it accounts only 1/16^th of the leaf size in Neurolepis elata. O. wightii (Munro) Fischer occupied the second position followed by O. travancorica (Bedd.) Benth. ex Gamble.

Koshy, K.C., K. P. Dintu and B. Gopakumar. 2010. The enigma of leaf size and plant size in bamboos. Current Science 99(8):1025-1027.