A rare black bamboo flower has bloomed in Japan for the first time since the Meiji era [1].
This event is significant because bamboo flowering is an extremely rare biological occurrence. Once the plant flowers, the individual plant dies, making the sighting a noteworthy event for both residents and botanical experts [3].
At the Toyoda City Natural Observation Forest in Aichi Prefecture, local resident Toyone Taniuchi and Deputy Director Hiroto Kawai identified the bloom as black bamboo, or kurochiku [1]. Taniuchi said that after searching online, he found that these flowers typically open once every 120 years [1]. Kawai said it is definitely a bamboo flower and confirmed it is the kurochiku species [1].
Similar rare sightings have been reported in other regions. A residential area in the Saijo Ward of Fukuoka City also reported a bloom, though some reports there mentioned different species, including hachiku [2].
The last recorded bloom of this nature occurred in 1908 [1]. Because of the long intervals between flowering cycles, many people have never seen the event in person. One photographer reporting from the Fukuoka site said he had never seen anything like it before [2].
Beyond the botanical interest, the rarity of the plant affects the market. Reports indicate that bamboo shoot wholesale prices have increased to 1.5 times higher than in 2024 [3]. This price surge reflects the impact of the flowering cycle on bamboo availability and the subsequent death of the flowering plants [3].
“"It is definitely a bamboo flower, it is kurochiku."”
The flowering of black bamboo is a gregarious blooming event, where plants of the same species flower synchronously across a wide area. Because the plant dies after this process, such events can lead to a temporary collapse of local bamboo populations, which explains the significant spike in wholesale prices for bamboo shoots.
