FUKUOKA - In a rare botanical event, a photographer in Fukuoka captured the blossoming of bamboo flowers, a phenomenon said to occur only once every 120 years.
The tranquil residential area of Sawara Ward in Fukuoka became the focus of this unusual occurrence. “I have never seen anything like it before,” said the photographer, who discovered what looked like fluffy rice panicles emerging from the bamboo nodes. The bamboo, a species known as black bamboo, was planted 18 years ago and has never exhibited such characteristics until now.
“I thought they were insect eggs,” the photographer admitted, referring to the peculiar formations. Suspecting they might be something else, he decided to take the mysterious specimens to a botanical garden for expert analysis.
“Ah, I see, they are indeed blooming. These are black bamboo flowers. They resemble rice flowers, don’t they? They are definitely flowers,” explained Futamata Tokuko, a flower and greenery consultancy expert. She confirmed that bamboo, belonging to the grass family, blooms in a manner similar to rice.
Further insights were provided by Futamata, who noted, “This black bamboo is a type of 'hachiku', and a mass flowering of hachiku species has begun. It was predicted that a mass flowering could occur around the 30th year of the Heisei era, about 120 years since the last one.”
This marks a significant blooming period for black bamboo, the first since the Meiji era, according to the Forestry Research Institute. When asked why bamboo undergoes such a transformation every 120 years, researcher Kobayashi Keito admitted, “That’s the real charm and mystery of bamboo. Hopefully, our research can clarify this phenomenon.”
Source: TBS
