''Bergbambos'' ''tessellata'' is a

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...

native to the south-eastern highlands of South Africa and Lesotho. It is the sole species in the monotypic genus ''Bergbambos'', belonging to the family

Poaceae Poaceae ( ), also called Gramineae ( ), is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos, the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivate ...

. Its generic name means "bushy reed", while the specific name means "tiled", an allusion to the rectangular pattern of veins on the leaves. Its common names include mountain bamboo, drakensberg bamboo and ''bergbamboes'' and ''wildebamboes'' in

Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...

Distribution

Bergbambos is found at an elevation of 1500-2000 metres in South Africa (in the

Cape Provinces The Cape Provinces of South Africa is a biogeographical area used in the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD). It is part of the WGSRPD region 27 Southern Africa. The area has the code "CPP". It includes the Sou ...

, Free State, and

KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN) is a Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the government merged the Zulu people, Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu language, Zulu) and ...

), Lesotho and Swaziland along mountain side streams. It is found in the Amathole Mountains, the Bamboesberg (for which it is named), and the

Drakensberg The Drakensberg (Zulu language, Zulu: uKhahlamba, Sotho language, Sotho: Maloti, Afrikaans: Drakensberge) is the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment, Southern Africa, Great Escarpment, which encloses the central South Africa#Geography, Sout ...

. Bergbambos is one of two temperate bamboo species on the African mainland, and the only bamboo native to South Africa and Lesotho.

Taxonomy

Specimens of this plant were collected in the 1820s and 1830s by Ecklon in the

Winterberg Winterberg (; Westphalian: ''Winnenmerg'') is a town in the Hochsauerland district of North Rhine-Westphalia, central Germany and a major winter sport resort of the Wintersport Arena Sauerland. Geography Winterberg is located in the middle ...

which is an extension of the Amathole range, and by Drège at Katberg near the western end of the Amatola range, Table Mountain in the Queenstown district, the Bamboesberge in the Tarkastad district, the Witteberg above Lady Grey and other high mountainous areas in the

Cape Colony The Cape Colony (), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three ...

, such as the Prentjiesberg north of Ugie. Neither collector found the plant in flower or seed so that its exact taxonomic position remained unclear until the 1900s when it was more fully described in "''Flora Capensis''".

Nees Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck (14 February 1776 – 16 March 1858) was a prolific German botanist, physician, zoologist, and natural philosopher. He was a contemporary of Goethe and was born within the lifetime of Linnaeus. ...

, who first described it from sterile specimens in 1841 in his elaboration of the ''

Gramineae Poaceae ( ), also called Gramineae ( ), is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos, the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated i ...

'' of South Africa, thought it close to '' Nastus'', and named it ''Nastus tessellata''. Robert Harold Compton found it at Bulunga Poort southeast of Manzini and at Tulwane, in Swaziland during his 1955-66 botanical survey of that country. In 1982 Thomas Robert Soderstrom and Roger Pearson Ellis revised its classification and placed it with 5 other species in '' Thamnocalamus'' as ''T. tessellatus''. In 2013, it was then transferred into its own genus, Bergbambos.

Ecology

Bamboos are divided into three categories on the basis of their flowering cycle - annual flowering, irregular flowering and gregarious flowering occurring at long intervals with synchronised flower and seed production. Most bamboos belong to this last category with intermasts ranging from 3 to 120 years. Bergbambos belongs to this third category and flowers at 45 year intervals. Records from

noting flowering in 1908, 1953 and 1998/99. It is also a host of the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological ...

-listed vulnerable butterfly, the bamboo sylph ('' Metisella syrinx'').

Description

Often found in association with '' Leucosidea sericea'', this frost-resistant species grows in dense clumps up to 5 metres tall, preferring moist rocky places, and has hollow culms or canes of 2-2.5 cm in diameter. The leaves at the base of branches are reduced to papery sheaths, while other leaves are 4–12 cm long and sharply pointed with spiny margins and a strongly tessellated surface.http://www.bamboogarden.com/Thamnocalamus%20tessellatus.htm

Conservation status

It was once regarded as rare and vulnerable, but is now classified as Least Concern. Current populations are threatened by fire and exploitation.

Synonyms

* ''Arundinaria tessellata'' (Nees) Munro * ''Nastus tessellatus'' Nees * ''Thamnocalamus tessellatus'' (Nees) Soderstr. & R.P.Ellis

References

External links

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q19820200, from2=Q19820207 Monotypic Poaceae genera Flora of the Cape Provinces Flora of the Free State Flora of KwaZulu-Natal Flora of Lesotho Grasses of Africa Bambusoideae genera Bambusoideae Plants described in 1841