Bamboo flowering
Bamboo flowering is rare: some species bloom only once in decades, all at the same time, and then die. In Bengal it was said to augur famine, and in Mizoram mass flowering has been followed by plagues of rats.
What it may mean
A bamboo in flower has almost finished its life, and it rarely goes alone. Many species grow for decades by sending up new shoots, then bloom together across a whole region, set seed and die back. In Mizoram, in northeast India, the bamboo Melocanna baccifera does this about every fifty years, and the flood of seed has fed explosions of rats that then raided the fields; famines there were recorded in 1815, 1863, 1911, 1959 and 2007. No wonder that in Bengal the flowering of bamboo was believed to augur famine. Here the omen and the ecology point the same way. One potted bamboo blooming at home is a smaller matter, but a flowering stem still carries a plain lesson: some long seasons end together, and early preparation beats surprise.
Depending on how you saw it
A whole stand dying at once
Because the plants in a stand flower in step, a hillside of bamboo can turn brown within a season after flowering. What around you is likely to change all at once rather than bit by bit?
Rats and seeds
Bamboo fruit is so nutritious that rat numbers rise sharply, a forest researcher told Mongabay, and once the seed is gone the rats move on to crops. What sudden plenty in your life came with a costly side effect?
Why it happens in nature
Many bamboos grow vegetatively for years or decades, flower once and then die. In gregarious flowering, all plants of a species across a wide area bloom at about the same time, at intervals that can reach 50 to 120 years. Melocanna baccifera flowers about every half century, and its abundant, nutritious seed can trigger a rapid rise in rat numbers.
What folk beliefs say
India (Bengal)
The flowering of bamboo was believed to augur famine in Bengal, Daniels and Stevans report.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 768. View the page
To reflect on
What long season are you in right now, and how would you know it was nearing its end?