The San Diego Botanic Garden in Encinitas will say goodbye to an old foliaged friend Friday that has literally grown up at the garden over the past three decades.
According to representatives at the Botanic Garden, their prized giant timber bamboo – also known as the Dendrocalamus giganteus -- will be removed from the garden due to its poor health.
The giant timber bamboo – which, at more than 70-feet-tall with canes or culms up to eight-inches in diameter, lives up to its name – has seriously declined in health over the last few years.
It has started to seed, signaling the end of its natural life.
The bamboo came to the garden from the Taiwan Forestry Research Department via the American Bamboo Society in 1981. It grew up over the decades and, at one point, was the largest of its kind in the United States.
The specimen has been in good company over its lifetime at the San Diego Botanic Garden. The facility boasts the largest collection of bamboos in any U.S. botanic garden, with more than 100 species and varieties.
A crane is set to remove the giant timber bamboo from the Botanical Garden on Friday during a special farewell ceremony.
Photo Credit: San Diego Botanic Garden