A very nice lady gave me two cuttings one she identified as Jacob's ladder which I knew to be incorrect. It is horsetail - no way to miss that! The other she called an upside down bamboo. It does appear to be some sort of bamboo, in that it has a slender green stalk that is hollow and is an evergreen. It is supposed to be like a weed in Florida, US. It has what looks like a little green flower of leaves on top of the single stalk. It is easily propigated by cutting one of the stalks and putting it upside down in a bucket of water. Roots begin and a sprout of leaves that look like what the beginning of a "corn silk" plant looks like when it begins begins, but the plant looks nothing like that. It really seems to be some sort of bamboo, but does not show up on several Internet searches of bamboo plants. It grows to about 4 feet in height. Does anyone know what this might be? Thanks
Ah... Upside-down Bamboo is probably Japanese Knotweed. Icky invasive plant, that one. A quick search of the forums will give you horror stories and containment / extermination advice.
Thanks for the reply; I was just telling my husband it is driving me crazy. I was surprised to so quickly find the horsetail and I can't find this! I'm just searching away on the Internet. Looked up Japanese Knotweed; thanks for the suggestion. This looks nothing like that plant - Thank Heavens! The leaves do look slender like bamboo. Think of a very tall pencil with a flat circle of leaves on top. It is really pretty. The only think that makes me think it is not actually bamboo is that the stalk though just like the bamboo I've seen other than that it is NOT segmented. It is just a 3-4 feet tall hollow stalk with the top of leaves like a flat, horizontal flower. It seems to be very consistent. The circles are all about the same size, the stalks about the same diameter, and the clups the lady had growing were all about the same height.
A picture would really help us all. In the mean time, could it be Cyperus papyrus? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyperus_papyrus
Thank you Luddite@Machen. It was not Cyperus papyrus, but the look was soooo similar that I did a search of plants in the Cyperus Genus and Cyperus involucratus seems to be a match! Here they do not grow as big as the ones pictured mainly from Florida, but the look is right on! They are also called Umbrella Palm, Umbrella Papyrus, and Umbrella Plant. I can definitely understand the Umbrella part; I had tried looking up Umbrella bamboo. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction. I do not know how to post photos on this site. But http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/2532/is the site I found with several photos of it. Thank you again
Glad you have pinned it down. Just for future reference, posting pics is easy... if you follow the advice Daniel gives in the panel to the right of this screen. "Attaching Images". However,it can take a wee while to upload them, so just be patient.
