# The Boreal Bamboo Forest



## Jdailey1991 (Mar 27, 2017)

The boreal forest, or taiga, exists only on subpolar latitudes, where the climate is too extreme for broad-leaved angiosperms to take root, thus making the taiga an exclusive conifers-only club.

In an alternate Earth, there is a clear ecological distinction between the two types of trees. Broad-leaved angiosperms lord over the lowlands whereas conifers can be found only on the cooler, drier and rockier highlands. So where does that leave the taiga?

In this same alternate Earth, the boreal forest consists primarily not of conifers, but a kind of grass called bamboo.  Now in order to survive in a latitude where the summers are short and the winters bitterly cold, these boreal bamboos may have to grow more slowly--like, instead of six weeks to reach the maximum height of 100 feet, it happens in six *years*. Is this change in adaptation enough for bamboo forests to thrive and proliferate in subpolar latitudes, or should more changes in characteristics be required?


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## ThinkerX (Mar 27, 2017)

About all I can say here is we have a couple kinds of bamboo here in Alaska.  Bit on the fragile side, seldom tops more than 8 or 10 feet in height, diameter of an inch, give or take.


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