Melocanna Baccifera

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 1

Melocanna baccifera, a tropical bamboo species, has long intrigued researchers for its association with the occurrence of ‘bamboo death,’ ‘rat floods’ and famines in northeast India.

Finding

• Researchers detected a correlation between the sugar content in the fruit of Melocanna baccifera and the frenzied feeding and population boom in rats during ‘Mautam’, the cyclical, mass bamboo flowering that occurs once in 48 years.
• Melocanna baccifera is the largest fruit-producing bamboo and is native to the northeast India-Myanmar region. 
• During its gregarious flowering, the bamboo produces large fruits which draw animal visitors/predators. 
• Of these, black rats greatly relish the fleshy, berry-like fruit. 
• During this period, they also multiply rapidly, a phenomenon dubbed as ‘rat flood.’ 
• Once the fruits are gone, they start devouring standing crops, causing famines that have claimed thousands of human lives.

Melocanna baccifera

• It is one of two bamboo species belonging to the Melocanna genus.
• It is the largest fruit-producing bamboo. 
• It grows up to 10–25 m tall. 
• It is native to Bangladesh, Myanmar, India, and Thailand.
• It is an invasive species that can occupy large areas due to its long and vigorous rhizomes and, in flowering, for its fruits that are easy to germinate.
• One of the most useful bamboos within its native range, especially in Bangladesh, it provides edible shoots, medicine and culms that have a wide range of uses.
• The plant is also grown as an ornamental purposes.

Cultivation of Melocanna Baccifera:

• A plant of the moist tropics. It grows best in areas where the mean annual temperature falls within the range 20 – 33°c, though it can tolerate 15 – 38°c.
• It prefers a mean annual rainfall in the range 2,000 – 3,000mm, tolerating 600 – 4,400mm.
• Succeeds in moist soils, preferring a fertile medium to heavy soil.
• Bamboos in general are usually monocarpic, living for many years before flowering, then flowering and seeding profusely for a period of 1 – 3 years before usually dying.
• The plant flowers gregariously, with a flowering cycle of 30 – 45 years. In the season before flowering no new shoots are produced. Flowering may continue for about 10 years over a tract that is sometimes called a flowering wave.

Uses

• In its native area, especially in Bangladesh, M. baccifera is one of the most useful bamboos. 
• Its culms are widely used in house building, 
• To make woven wares (baskets, mats, handicrafts, wall plates, screens, hats) and domestic utensils, 
• And are an important source of superior paperpulp. 
• The young shoots are edible and during the rainy season constitute one of the important foods.
• The shoots are also sliced and dried in the sun for preservation.

Medicinal Uses

• Tabashir, which is a siliceous concretion found in the culms of the bamboo stem, can be collected from the culms.
• It is used as a tonic in treating respiratory diseases.