WHAT IS GREGARIOUS FLOWERING

Question

WHAT IS GREGARIOUS FLOWERING

Answer 1

Gregarious flowering (also known as masting) referes to the simultaneous flowering of the all gregarious plants (clumps) of a particular type. The meaning of the word gregarious is plants which grow in a cluster or a colony (Websters dictionary).Generally the term is used for flowering of plants of a species which occurs simiultaneously irrespective of the geographical distribution..

One good example I know  is the Bamboo flowering.

After a long interval all the bamboo plants of the same species will flower at a time and bear seed, The flowering is once in 30-40 years and the plant dies after the flowering.

The all plants of the species (same seed origin) will flower at the same time although they are located at the distant places form one another.

Some details on bamboo flowering are as below :

Bamboo Flowering

Gregarious flowering (masting) may be defined as simultaneous flowering in all the culms in clump and all the clumps in a population of a particular species spread over a large geographical area, usually followed by death of clumps. It usually occurs periodically, period remaining constant for a species in a specific area. The flowering of bamboo is a unique phenomenon, which is not yet well understood. On the basis of the flowering behaviour, Brandis (1906) categorized bamboos in three major groups :

those which flower periodically or gregariously

those which flower annually

those which flower irregularly

Most of the commercially important bamboo species belong to the first category i.e. those, which flower periodically in gregarious manner. They grow for decades and reproduce vegetatively and at the end of a definite period flowering starts synchronously in all the daughter clumps originated from one parent clump even if they are widely separated geographically. Patches of such geographically separated bamboo forests which have same parental origin (may be several generations earlier) are called ‘cohorts’. In majority of the bamboo species, the flowered bamboo clumps die after seed setting. Gregarious flowering generally progresses from one end of forest to the other in waves. In a period of 2 to 3 years, the entire forest area would have flowered and all the bamboo clumps would be dead.

The majority of bamboo species flower after long intervals and require careful management for its proper regeneration e.g. Melocanna baccifera (Muli Bamboo) is estimated to flower every 44-46 years. The last recorded gregarious flowering of Muli bamboo in parts of North Eastern region was in the year 1958-59.

The exact physiological mechanism of bamboo flowering is yet not known precisely. Different evolutionary hypothesis are put forward to explain bamboo flowering. They are (i) Parental competition hypothesis – Bamboos form extensive continuous stands with very little canopy gaps. When flowering and seeding occurs competition from parent clumps will be very high for development of seedling. Hence the evolutionary trend is the death of parent clumps giving space to the offspring. (ii) Consumer satiation hypothesis – very large numbers of seed predators are reported for bamboos and this hypothesis suggests that bamboo produces large quantity of seeds, storage of food reserves takes long time. (iii) Climatic periodicity hypothesis- Bamboo flowering is associated with climatic factors like drought. All these hypotheses remain controversial. But it is a fact that there is a periodicity for flowering that is species specific.

Answer 2

The simultaneous flowering at long intervals of many individuals of the same species .

Answer 3

"Aidan L " has correctly given the explanation .

Then why thumbs down ?