naure.com
NatureSurprise 4/5Difficulty 3/5Reviewed on September 17, 2026

Some bamboo species flower only once every hundred years and then die.

Why it is true

This phenomenon, called gregarious flowering, occurs simultaneously in plants of the same species worldwide, exhausting all their energy in seed production and leading to the death of the entire forest.

Source: Botany

Would you rather be asked first?

This is the reading side of the site, so the answer is in the sentence above — that is the whole point of it. Test yourself works the other way round: the question comes on its own, and the fact and the explanation only appear once you have answered.

Test yourself →10-question challenge

Related facts

More in Nature

See all →