Bamboo is a type of grass of which there are around 1,500 species. The attributes vary between species, but generally speaking it is pest resistant, can grow in poor soils and in comparison to other crops, requires little water. When we think of bamboo, we usually think of Asia; but of all the species, around 900 are tropical and 500 are temperate. North America has species of bamboo in the Eastern and Southeastern United States. There's even several species native to Australia. Bamboo is the world's fastest growing plant and some species of bamboo can grow up to a foot a day in the right conditions. It's this amazing growth rate coupled with the "spear" type shoot I mentioned that led it to unfortunately also being used as a torture device; the methods of use I won't go into.
Bamboo has an extraordinary range of uses. Here's just a few:
baskets, bicycle frames, bird cages, blinds, boats, bridges, brushes, buckets, canoes, carts, charcoal, chopsticks, clothing, cooking utensils, diapers, fans, fences, firewood, fishing rods, food steamer, furniture, garden tools, handicrafts, hats, incense, musical instruments, paper, particle board, pens, pipes, ply ,roofing, scaffold, tableware, toilets, toothpicks, toys, umbrellas, walking sticks and that's just scratching the surface.
Bamboo is useful for various applications at different ages :
<30 days - good for eating
6-9 months - for making baskets
2-3 years - for bamboo boards or laminations
3-6 years - for construction
>6 years - bamboo gradually loses strength up to 12 years old
6-9 months - for making baskets
2-3 years - for bamboo boards or laminations
3-6 years - for construction
>6 years - bamboo gradually loses strength up to 12 years old
How does bamboo grow?
Bamboo grows in a fashion that is quite different from the way that a tree develops. A tree has a layer of living tissue around the outside of it's trunk just beneath the bark. Left alone this layer of tissue adds an ever increasing circle of wood around the central mass which you can recognise as the concentric annual rings in cut timber. Not so bamboo. The bamboo stems emerge from the ground as buds with the same diameter as the final stem. All they do is grow longer in much the same way as a telescope, extending at a very rapid rate that can be in excess of a metre a day in a mature stand. When the culm is around three quarters to two thirds tall the elongation will tend to taper. However, they will remain the same diameter and possibly only grow another 10% taller as they mature over the next twelve months. When the culm has reached full height branches will start to appear and depending on species a new shoot can be fully developed within three months.
What is a bamboo pole?
The timber pole is called a culm or bamboo pole. It is the telescopic extension of the emerging shoot and grows to full height at a rapid rate that can in mature stands or groves exceed a metre a day. Perhaps the most noticeable characteristic of bamboo is the segmentation of the culm into distinct nodes or joints with intermediate smooth sectors called internodes. In the great majority of cases the culm internodes are hollow but in all cases the nodal junction is solid allowing for the transverse distribution of nutrients and water. The external surface is polished and extremely hard being coated with a protective screen of wax and silica. Peripheral culm tissue is a dense matrix of elongated cellulose plant fibres cemented together by a substance called lignin to provide a strong and very flexible pole.
3 different types of bamboo
According to their flowering habits, there are three types of bamboo: (i) those that flower annually or nearly so, e.g., Arundinaria spp. in India and Schizostachium brachycladum inThailand; (ii) those that flower gregariously and periodically; (iii) those that flower irregularly. The flowering habit of Bambusa spp. and Dendrocalamus spp. in the tropical regions of Asia and of Phyllostachys and other genera in Japan belongs to types (ii) and (iii). P. edulis flowers sporadically, and the flowering occurs in small areas or in a few clumps. Periodical and gregarious flowering occurs in cycles; the cycles are more or less constant for a species in a given locality but differ between remote locations.
