90 
WILLIAM SEIFRIZ 
One rather welcomes an exception to the striking regularity in sexual 
periodicity of a species extending over a large territory. Indeed, one would 
expect not a single exception but many, brought about by different rates in 
seed germination, and in growth both of seedlings and mature plants due 
to differences in environmental factors such as moisture, light, temperature, 
and soil, which would ultimately give rise to plants whose time of flowering 
would precede or follow that of the majority, and which would thus, in time, 
produce many plants whose life cycles overlapped so that some out of the 
many could be found in flower in any year. It would be exceedingly inter- 
esting to attempt to bring about such a state artificially by deferring the 
sowing of the seed, and thus attempting to postpone the time of flowering 
or to shorten the life cycle. It would seem, however, that this experiment 
must have been many times performed by nature (i.e., if the seed is capable 
of germinating after i or more years) so that we should be able to judge from 
the present condition of the wild plants of Chusquea whether the cycle 
can be altered in this way. Bean (3) is of the opinion that the simultaneous 
flowering of bamboos follows some general law. What this general law 
might be he does not suggest. Yet he does believe that under cultivation 
the system of simultaneous flowering of some of these species would appear 
to be breaking down, and he cites the case of Arundinaria Falconeri which 
flowered in England, in the vast majority of cases, in 1876, but the flowering 
of the generation at the time he wrote (1907) had already extended over 
five seasons. That a breaking down of simultaneous flowering in Chusquea 
ahietifolia is taking place in the wild state is suggested by the exceptions 
that I have noted and by the fact that this climbing bamboo was detected 
in flower in 1911 and was also flowering freely at the base of Catherine's 
Peak, but not elsewhere, in November, 1912. In fact, Mr. Harris suggests, 
"It is just possible that individual plants of Chusquea may be found in 
flower in any year if careful search were made for them." 
In spite of these several exceptions, it remains a striking fact that fully 
98 percent of all plants of Chusquea ahietifolia found in Jamaica in a region 
some ten miles in length, varying from 4,000 to 7,000 feet in altitude, and 
showing considerable diversities of light, temperature, and moisture, have 
flowered and died in a single brief period not exceeding two years, after a 
purely vegetative growth of more than thirty-one years. 
This complete cycle of thirty-three years differs by only one year from 
that given by Brandis (8) for Bamhusa arundinacea in India. It seems 
quite possible that the life cycles of these two genera are the same, for the 
exact time of flowering is not always readily determined. The general 
flowering of a species in one particular year may be heralded by a few 
forerunners the previous year and followed by that of laggards the next. 
Morris states that the last previous flowering of Chusquea in the Blue 
Mountains of Jamaica commenced in 1884, and Hart reports it as continuing 
until 1886. The exact time of the recent flowering is not definitely known. 
