World's Smallest Bamboo Discovered among Specimens at NMNH

From Plant Press Vol. 10, no. 4

Raddiella vanessiae can sit comfortably in the palm of a hand

Emmet J. Judziewicz and Sol Sepsenwol from the Department of Biology at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point have recently described a new plant species from French Guiana that is being touted as the world’s smallest bamboo. Judziewicz, a research associate of the National Museum of Natural History’s Department of Botany, discovered the specimens of the new bamboo during a research visit to the Smithsonian Institution in August 2006. The specimen is part of the Biological Diversity of the Guianas Program, headed by Vicki Funk.

A description of the new species, Raddiella vanessiae, was published in the August 2007 issue of the Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas. The mature flowering and fruiting plants are only 2 cm tall – less than 1 inch high. The fruits and seeds are slightly less than 1 mm long. It has larger relatives in the same genus (Raddiella) that range from 3-12 inches tall.

The species is considered a bamboo because the leaf anatomy is typical of that of much larger bamboos including species that can be up to 100 feet tall and are used for lumber or fishing poles. Also, chloroplast DNA data confirms that the genus Raddiella nests comfortably within the clade (branch of the grass family evolutionary tree) that includes all bamboos.

The new species was collected by Vanessa Hequet, a French citizen working on the ecology of the savannas of French Guiana with funding from the World Wildlife Federation and the assistance of ORSTOM (Office de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique de Outre-Mer), an agency of the French government. The species was named after her.

There are about 1,000 species of bamboos in the world; roughly 500 in the Old World (most common in Asia) and 500 in the New World (most common in Central and South America). In addition, there are probably at least several hundred bamboo species remaining to be discovered and formally described. The challenge is that many bamboo habitats such as remote mountain ranges and rain forests in South America have had very inadequate surveys for bamboos and many other organisms.

Comments

[daringabroad]

That, tiny and cuuute.