Bamboo (many genera, >1100 spp.)
POACEAE, Grass Family
One of the most easily identified plants is tree-sized bamboo, belonging to a large subfamily, Bambusoideae, of the grass family (Poaceae). These plants are indigenous to the wet tropics, where they form dense stands, often clones arising from a single seed or rhizome. These large monocotyledons have stems with very long internodes, defined by an encircling leaf at each node. New, sharp-pointed shoots arises from the aggressive below-ground rhizomes, anchored in soil by adventitious roots. The shoot typically grows vertical without branches at first, and the first leaves commonly are large, triangular structures. Because the internodes may elongate rapidly, during a rainy season shoots of certain bamboos can grow 10 to 20 meters in one month! After the main shoot has reached sunlight, branches form from axillary buds located at the nodes. The second leaves often are much smaller and very different in appearance than the large clasping leaves of the main shoot.
Bamboos are of enormous importance to rural people in tropical regions, especially in southern and southeastern Asia. First of all, the main stem, which in a few species reaches 30 meters, is extremely hard. Most people would call this stem "woody," but the truth is that bamboos, like other monocotyledons, do not form true wood from a vascular cambium. Nonetheless, bamboo is called "poor-man's timber," especially in regions where the native forests have long since disappeared. The cells of the stem have very thick cell walls containing high concentration of lignin, making them hard.
Stems of bamboo are especially interesting in having hollow internodes and solid nodes. As such, these stems are beautifully engineered as posts for small buildings, bridges, rafts and masts for boats, scaffolding, ladders, roofing, and the like, and if the solid nodal plugs are removed, the stem can be used as a water or sewage pipe. Thinner poles are used for fishing rods, lance staves, walking sticks, and horticultural poles. Among crafted items are specialty pieces of furniture, such as cradles, cart yokes, musical instruments, fishing traps, bows and arrows, eating utensils, hookah pipes, trays for silkworms, coffins for cremation, polo mallets, rickshaw hoods, and trellises. For things to wear look for bamboo being used for hats, plaited shoes, umbrella handles, ornaments, and necklaces. Stems are processed to make paper, especially in India-more than 2 million tons per year (especially Dendrocalamus strictus; Phyloostachys spp. in China and Japan--and the stem has been carbonized for use as electric lamp filaments, in goldsmithery, and tabashir, a fine powder used as a chemical catalyst. Bamboo wax is melted cuticle from the stems of Sasa paniculata. A long list of medicinal uses have been tried for bamboos, including a jaundice treatment, and if your eyes are looking a little dull, try some bamboo eyeliner!
Bamboo shoots for cooking are very young shoot tips, harvested before they become woody. If you are eating bamboo shoots, you may also be using chopsticks made of bamboo or feasting on kabobs with bamboo skewers. The rhizome of Dendrocalamus hamiltonii is portrayed as a replica of a rhino horn, and, in that vein, is taken as an aphrodisiac. [Don't try this at home!]
Especially in California and Florida you will see bamboos used as ornamental plants. There are many cultivated species of the 1100 species, but most are extremely difficult to identify properly, because they hardly ever produce flowers. Bamboos are notorious for their strange flowering habits. Some have annual flowering, or nearly so, but many are termed gregarious and periodic. Of these, the entire plant flowers only at discrete intervals, e.g., 7, 11, 15, 30, 48, 60, or 120 year intervals. When flowering occurs, all clumps in a region commonly bloom at the same time, and they set seed before the plants all die, and the species must be reestablished from seed. This catastrophic death is troublesome for animals that may depend on a particular species of bamboo, such as the giant panda in China.