For those say in their 60s or 70s here. When you were in your 30’s or 40’s did you have the feeling that the world was a fucked up place? So much has been going on since I entered adulthood in the early 2000s and I feel like it’s getting more and more intense. It’s never ending.
Is it unique? Or has it always been this way?
TIL not all bamboo is from Asia. Is there a good/easy way to tell Arundinaria apart from invasive bamboo? There’s a vacant lot near my house with a ton of bamboo on it, and your comment gives me a slim hope that it might be something other than a noxious weed that needs remediation.
I often find that due to where I grew up I learned about things, like the Tulsa race massacre for instance, that others didn’t. In this case, the cultural center run by my tribal government regularly has demonstrations on how my tribe used river cane. Including for things like basket weaving, blow guns, flutes, and even sticks for an early version of what would eventually become lacrosse.
Where I grew up, giant river cane specifically is being cultivated and reintroduced for Native purposes and is now not totally uncommon to find near the local rivers and streams. I don’t know how to tell them apart, but it’s entirely possible that that’s what’s near you too depend depending on where you are.
It’s a stream bank in an urban neighborhood, so it’s probably Asian stuff some idiot upstream previously put in their yard for ornamental purposes. But it’s in the Southeast, so it could be native.
On a related note, the A. gigantea article mentions use by the Cherokee, Seminole, Chickasaw and Choctaw specifically. My city used to be Muskogee Creek territory (I think). Given that they were neighbored by and related to those other tribes (in terms of language etc.), is it safe to assume they’d have been making stuff out of it, too?