Propagation: Giant Bamboo seeds on Ebay, 0 by tropicalbamboo

tropicalbamboo wrote:
After reading these posts I have to make a couple of comments.

There are more than 1500 different bamboo species in the world. Like most plant groups, there are species within the group to fit nearly every landscape application. Planting aggressive running bamboo species in the wrong location has led to people making comments that "don't plant bamboo, it will take over". If appropriate species were selected, or the sites were prepared properly for an aggressive runner, there would be no problems. Also, in the limited sub-tropical areas of the U.S., clumping bamboo species can be planted with no site preparation.

Now I'll address the bamboo seed issue. A bamboo flowering event is indeed a rare occurrence. It can take up to 120 years or more between a flowering event of a bamboo species. Some species have no record of ever flowering. During the past few years, bamboo seeds, labeled as most of the desirable ornamental bamboo species, have appeared on EBay and other online sources. Despite the nearly mathematical impossibility of all of these species producing viable seeds simultaneously, folks have been happily buying and even reselling the seedlings. Almost daily, we (my nursery) receive emails and phone calls from people growing bamboo seedlings wondering when their bamboo will begin to resemble the bamboos pictured on our nursery website. When we're told the bamboos were grown from seed, we give the same answer - "most likely never".
My opinion is that the online bamboo seeds are a scam. There are probably a few non-ornamental species flowering in India and those seeds are collected and distributed with many different names on the labels. Even if the seeds were collected from a labeled species, the seedlings would vary in vigor and in form. Ironically, a bamboo seed grower could end up with a special hybrid, but that is not usually the goal (and the odds are kind of like the lottery). Most seed growers think they're getting a bargain on Giant Bamboo, or Black Bamboo, or Blue Bamboo, etc. The cost is not really too painful since the seeds are cheap. The wasted time (a year or two) is what really is disappointing.
The photo here is of a seedling labeled Bambusa lako. It was brought into my nursery by a confused customer who bought her seeds from the EBay seed vendor in Germany. The seedling is about 14 months old. Next to it is a true Bambusa lako at 12 months old (with my son). The photograph shows obvious differences but, in person, you don't have to be an expert to see the bamboos are not close to being the same species.