A hot walk to observe bamboo

Last week Wednesday was the last free concert of the summer at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The Whitaker Music Festival is held there every year, and these concerts are one of the highlights of the week for us. Great music, free admission to the garden -- a don't-miss series (next year) if you live in the St. Louis area!

Since I had been to the garden several times this summer already so wasn't sure when I'd be back again, I had to take a walk to see one of the bamboo plantings in the Japanese Garden.

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I should actually say to see the only bamboo planting in the Japanese Garden, this rather extensive patch of what I'm pretty sure is Pleioblastus pygmaeus based on the available garden records.

I had heard from people on a bamboo growers forum I frequent that this species was in full flower in many gardens right now, so I wanted to see if their planting was also.

I didn't see any evidence of flowers.

Did I mention that it was dreadfully hot and humid this night, and the walk to the back corner of the garden had me dripping with sweat?

Luckily this bamboo is in one of the prettiest parts of the garden, on the bank of the lake:

So it was worth the few minutes of discomfort to see it before the concert started.

I'll probably wait until it's much cooler before visiting again though.

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