I’m starting to gain insight into why people turn into conspiracy theorists. Some topics are so totally neglected that it looks like they were intentionally and maliciously erased, instead of falling victim to arbitrary lack of interest.
I think it’s a vicious cycle; when people don’t know something exists, they’re not curious about it. Also, people use conceptual categories to think about things, and when a topic falls between or outside of conceptual categories, it can end up totally omitted from our awareness even though it very much exists and is important.
This post is about native bamboo in the United States and the fact that miles-wide tracts of the American Southeast used to be covered in bamboo forests
@icannotgetoverbirds It already is a maddening, bizarre research hole that I have been down for the past few weeks.
Basically, I learned that we have native bamboo, that it once formed an ecosystem called the canebrake that is now critically endangered. The Southeastern USA used to be full of these bamboo thickets that could stretch for miles, but now the bamboo only exists in isolated patches
And THEN.
I realized that there is a little fragment of a canebrake literally in my neighborhood.
HI I AM NOW OBSESSED WITH THIS.
I did not realize the significance until I showed a picture to the ecologist where i work and his reaction was “Whoa! That is BIG.”
Apparently extant stands of river cane are mostly just…little sparse thickety patches in forest undergrowth. This patch is about a quarter acre monotypic stand, and about ten years old.
I dive down the Research Hole™. Everything new I learn is wilder. Giant river cane mainly reproduces asexually. It only flowers every few decades and the entire clonal colony often dies after it flowers. Seeds often aren’t viable.
It’s barely been studied enough to determine its ecological significance, but there are five butterfly species and SEVEN moth species dependent on river cane. Many of these should probably be listed as endangered but there’s not enough research
There’s a species of CRITICALLY ENDANGERED PITCHER PLANT found in canebrakes that only still remains in TWO SPECIFIC COUNTIES IN ALABAMA
Some gardening websites list its height as “over 6 feet” “Over 10 feet” There are living stands that are 30+ feet tall, historical records of it being over 40 feet tall or taller. COLONIAL WRITINGS TALK ABOUT CANES “AS THICK AS A MAN’S THIGH.”
The interval between flowering is anyone’s guess, and WHY it happens when it does is also anyone’s guess. Some say 40-50 years, but there are records of it blooming in as little time as 3-15 years.
It is a miracle plant for filtering pollution. It absorbs 99% of groundwater nitrate contaminants. NINETY NINE PERCENT. It is also so ridiculously useful that it was a staple of Native American material culture everywhere it grew. Baskets! Fishing poles! Beds! Flutes! Mats! Blowguns! Arrows! You name it! You can even eat the young shoots and the seeds.
I took these pictures myself. This stuff in the bottom photo is ten feet tall if it’s an inch.
Arundinaria itself is not currently listed as endangered, but I’m growing more and more convinced that it should be. The reports of seeds being usually unviable could suggest very low genetic diversity. You see, it grows in clonal colonies; every cane you see in that photo is probably a clone. The Southern Illinois University research project on it identified 140 individual sites in the surrounding region where it grows.
The question is, are those sites clonal colonies? If so, that’s 140 individual PLANTS.
Also, the consistent low estimates of the size Arundinaria gigantea attains (6 feet?? really??) suggests that colonies either aren’t living long enough to reach mature size or aren’t healthy enough to grow as big as they are supposed to. I doubt we have any clue whatsoever about how its flowers are pollinated. We need to do some research IMMEDIATELY about how much genetic diversity remains in existing populations.
You’ll never guess what I spent a month frantically researching myself to madness about earlier this year!
I definitely think there’s Something ™ to say about the portrayal of “off-human” characters in modern media adaptations as having (particularly facial) deformities and/or learning disabilities.
Robert Louis Stevenson was fully like “this is my OC, Hyde, who represents a comete lack of caring for your fellow man. There is nothing extraordinary about him except that his rancid vibes make people uncomfortable which adds to the core theme of the role of morality in humanity, so its really important that he’s physically normal so the audience can recognise that it’s what’s inside that’s most important,” and every film adaptation was like “mmkay. Yeah, no, I’ve got it. We can show that he’s evil by using prosthetics and making him non/semi-verbal, which, as we all know, are the True Measures of Evil.”
[ID: An image of a white sporty-looking car with a high spoiler on the back; a woman is sitting on the trunk of the car, legs through the spoiler, using it like a narrow table to eat soup off of. She also has what looks like a coffee drink and possibly some french fries nearby.]
[ID art of a leather jacket with text that reads, “I thought that my life would suddenly improve if I got a leather jacket and I was literally 100% totally right.”]
