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Romfh, Peggy

Arundinaria gigantea

Arundinaria gigantea (Walter) Muhl.

Giant Cane, River Cane, Switch Cane, American Bamboo

Poaceae (Grass Family)

Synonym(s): Arundinaria gigantea ssp. gigantea, Arundinaria gigantea ssp. macrosperma

USDA Symbol: ARGI

USDA Native Status: L48 (N)

A woody perennial from hard, tough rhizomes, forming open to dense colonies. The slender stems are 3-25 ft. tall, at first unbranched, later branching and forming fanlike clusters. Basal leaves and those on primary branches are short and narrow; upper leaves are longer and wider. Spikelets occur on long, slender stalks, flowering at infrequent intervals. Flowering stems die after seeds mature. Arundinaria gigantea tends to occur along or in the floodplains of moving bodies of water such as streams or rivers. Smaller, more blue-green populations on lower, wetter sites of non-moving water like swamps are classified as Arundinaria tecta, (Walter) Muhl., and referred to as Switch cane, while much smaller (no more than one meter high) plants on drier upland sites are classified as Arundinaria appalachiana, Triplett, Weakley & L.G. Clark, and called Hill cane.

The northernmost bamboo in the Americas, Arundinaria gigantea at one time ranged from what is now southern New Jersey, southern Ohio, and southern Illinois south to northern Florida and west to eastern Texas and eastern Oklahoma, forming its own ecosystems called canebrakes. In some areas, like the Gulf Coast savannas and what would become Kentucky, landscapes as far as the eye could see were covered with this giant grass. It formed the understory in cane savannas in the Southeast and provided cover for a variety of animals, some of which relied on it, like Wood Bison, Canebrake Rattlesnakes, Swamp Rabbits, and several species of warbler. When its numbers were huge, it often seeded out all at once, inviting great flocks of birds to partake of the feast. Humans, too, utilized the plant for basketry and home construction. Today, it is limited to occasional patches, as it was cleared away with European invasion from the 16th to 19th centuries.

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