River Cane of the Southern Appalachians

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River cane

As you head from Waynesville, N.C., on Highway 209 toward the truck stop on I-40, you will pass a huge stand of 20-foot tall leafy plants running along the Pigeon River. The dense, towering branches form an impenetrable screen between the road, a tobacco patch, and the river. That little stand of greenery represents a big story in these mountains.

When you first see it, perhaps you think it’s bamboo, a non-native species. Actually, it’s river cane (technically, Arundinaria gigantea). The plant was here before the Europeans came into these hills. It was a central part of the Cherokee culture and was important for the settlement of the mountains.

River cane grew densely along water courses throughout the mountains. William Bartram, visiting this region in 1775 and writing in his Travels, described vast stands of river cane, so large he called them “cane meadows.” Today, little patches are hanging on in towns, near bridges, and behind garages. The cane that Bartram saw had stalks as big around as your wrist. The Cherokee split it lengthwise, strapped the long halves parallel like a placemat, and apparently made coverings for the walls of their houses.  

From a young cane stalk, the Cherokee bored out the center; then with a dart made of bone and dandelion, felled birds with the blowgun. It hardly seems possible, but see the exhibit at the Museum of the Cherokee Indians in Cherokee, N.C., for a fine illustration.

Cherokee crafters make a double-walled basket out of split cane. The artisan begins at the “bottom” of the basket, with the shiny side of the stalks facing her. When she gets to the top of the basket, she bends the cane over and weaves with the shiny side on the outside, making a double wall all the way around to the bottom again. This is harder to do than to describe. The tight weaves are a marvel, and the basket can almost hold water. The oldest known example is in the Sloane Museum in London. It was acquired by the museum in 1725.

Today, fly fishing shops in western North Carolina will sell you a handcrafted fly rod for several thousand dollars. The rod is made by straightening the cane stalk, splitting it into lengthwise slivers, shaving the slivers into wedges, then gluing and binding the wedges into the sections of the rod. The result is a pencil-shaped instrument that is, in its way, as fine as a violin—and costs just as much. 

River cane and its cousin, switch cane (Arundinaria tecta, a smaller species), were until recently thought to be the only native North American arundinaria. There are hundreds of species native to Asia. Last winter, though, botanists from the universities of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Iowa State announced the discovery of a third species, which they call “hill cane” (Arundinaria appalachiana). It lives only in the southern Appalachians. Hill cane, unlike the other two North American species, is deciduous. It is much smaller and more closely resembles the grass family of which the canes are a part. 

Researchers have published photos of the new species in Polk County, Tenn., and Macon County, N.C., but the species is much more widespread than that. Perhaps it has just been overlooked in the forests of the Southern mountains.

Cane reproduces itself like grass—that is, by spreading lateral underground roots called rhizomes. Periodically it flowers, but when it flowers, it dies, down to the roots (though sometimes the dying takes until the next year). Sometimes the flowering produces seeds, but sometimes not.  

How long cane takes before flowering is highly variable. Some stands of cane apparently go decades before flowering. Cane seems to like fire. After a burn, the root system sends up new shoots that can grow a meter a year. One researcher found that fire actually rejuvenated a stand of cane, which was otherwise fading out. For a plant that has been in contact with people for so long, you would think botanists would know more about this, but they don’t. 

The canebrakes gave us a myriad of place names throughout Western North Carolina—Caney Bottom (near Brevard), Caney Fork (in Jackson County), the Cane River (near Burnsville in Yancey County) and Cane creeks all over North Carolina. 

Cane favors stream banks and acts better than hardwood trees to stabilize the bank from erosion and to filter run-off pollutants. In fact, the big stand of cane on Highway 209 was planted as a stream bank stabilizer by the landowner, on the advice of the county agricultural extension agent, about 40 years ago.

Researchers estimate that some 98 percent of the canebrakes present when the Europeans arrived have been lost. The usual suspect is the enclosure of animals, especially cattle, which eat the tender cane shoots as they emerge. In Cherokee, the tribe has sponsored a restoration project to ensure native basketmakers having a supply of cane for their work. Preserving river cane is one way to recognize the history and value of this hardy and beautiful grass. 

Of course, it helps if we don’t call it bamboo.

Saving the legacy of Cherokee baskets

The crafters of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians face a dilemma. For years, the number of Cherokee women who wove river cane baskets has steadily declined. The skills needed to weave the thin splits into baskets were being lost. At one point, the number of weavers who could produce the exquisite double-walled baskets was fewer than fifteen.

In an effort to save this important part of Native American craft heritage, the weavers and the Qualla Arts & Crafts Mutual (the local cooperative for the sale of traditional crafts) sought to teach their methods to students at Cherokee High School. They emphasized the connection of the work to the historical strong women of the tribe and pointed out that weavers can have an independent income, given the well-recognized market for their baskets.

The education and training efforts paid off. An increasing number of young women acquired the old ways of finding bloodroot and black walnut to dye the cane, built up the strength of their fingers to pull the thin strips tightly into the basket walls, and worked out the intricate patterns of the strips.  

But then came another dilemma. All the new weavers overwhelmed the existing supply of river cane.

The tribe responded to the challenge by funding a multi-year, multi-disciplinary scientific investigation.  The River Cane Restoration Project is a joint project of the tribe along with botanists at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C. Investigators catalogued all the stands of river cane they could find in the region, evaluated various soil and environmental conditions conducive (and harmful) to cane’s growth, and published their findings. The program continues to disseminate its work, including advice on planting techniques and nursery sources of river cane. 

Landowners can participate in the restoration of river cane by choosing sites that contain loose, loamy soil and by transplanting culms (lateral sections of underground cane growth) usually in the spring.  Oddly, while cane seems to like being near water, it can’t tolerate being inundated and often does quite well on sloping ground with water nowhere nearby.

• Revitalization of Traditional Cherokee Artisan  Resources (RTCAR): www.rtcar.org
• Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual, Inc.: www.quallaartsandcrafts.org 
• The River Cane Restoration Project: www.wcu.edu/24629.asp