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Arundinaria gigantea
Also called River cane, Switch Cane, Giant River Cane, Rivercane
Giant cane is a native North American bamboo-like grass that spreads by underground rhizomes to form dense thickets called canebrakes. It thrives in moist, periodically burned sites and is grown mainly in naturalistic or restoration plantings rather than as a typical garden plant.
Arundinaria gigantea is a species of bamboo known as giant cane (not to be confused with Arundo donax), river cane, and giant river cane. It is endemic to the south-central and southeastern United States as far west as Oklahoma and Texas and as far north as New York. Giant river cane was economically and culturally important to indigenous people, with uses including as a vegetable and materials for construction and craft production. Arundinaria gigantea and other species of Arundinaria once grew in large colonies called canebrakes covering thousands of acres in the southeastern United States, but today these canebrakes are considered endangered ecosystems.
During the last Glacial Maximum, the range of this plant was restricted to a narrow strip along the Gulf Coast. When the ice sheets retreated, it spread northward to its current range.
There are many human uses for the cane. The Cherokee, particularly the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, use this species in basketry. The Cherokee historically maintained canebrakes with cutting and periodic burning, a practice which stopped with the European settlement of the land. The elimination of cane habitat has nearly resulted in the loss of the art of basketmaking, which is important for the economy of the Cherokee today. Canebrakes have been reduced in area by at least 98% and cane may take 20 years to grow to a sufficient size to be used for traditional basketry. Because of this, Cherokee basketmakers nowadays often do not have access to the traditional material for making Cherokee baskets, which are considered some of the finest in the world.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Arundinaria gigantea by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
