BAMBOO' (Malay, ('ambu Menthe). Data base, Arandina•ia, and Phyllostachys. Genera of grasses, many species of which attain a great size, some 70 or 100 feet in height, and have trunks a foot in diameter. The species are nu merous, and are found in tropical and subtropical regions, both of the Eastern and Western hemi spheres. They are of great importance to the inhabitants of the countries in which they grow, being found from sea-level to 12,000 feet in the Himalayas and 15,000 feet in time Andes. All of them have a jointed subterranean root-stock (rhizome) which throws up pulverous stems. These are generally straight and erect; although one large species Wain base ayrestis), common in dry mountainous situations in the southeast of Asia. has crooked and sometimes creeping stems. The stems grow to their full height unbranched, but afterwards throw out straight horizontal branches, especially in their upper parts, forming a dense thicket; and many of them being strongly armed with spines, they are planted for defense. Some of the smaller kinds are often planted as hedges. The stems are jointed like those of other grasses, very hard, but light and elastic, hollow,containing, only a light spongy pith, except at the joints or nodes, where they are divided by strong partitions. They are, therefore, readily converted into water-vessels of various sorts: and when the partitions arc removed, they are used as pipes for conveying, water. They are also much employed for house-building, for bridges, etc. Split bamboo is extensively used for weav ing into nets. for hats, umbrellas. fishing rods, etc. The smaller stems are converted into water sticks, and are employed in light wickerwork. In China, the leaf-sheaths and other portions of the stem are used for making paper. The stems
of different species vary also very much in the thickness of the woody part, and so in their adaptation to different purposes. The external covering of the stem is, in all the species, re markably siliceous; the stem of Bambuse tabararia is so hard that it strikes fire when the hatchet is applied. This species is a native of Amboyna and Java; its slender stems are pol ished• and used for the stems of tobacco-pipes. The leaves of some kinds are used for thatch, and the Chinese plait hats of them. From the nodes of the bamboo there exudes a saccharine juice which dries upon exposure to the atmosphere, and which the Greeks called Indian honey. It is also sometimes named tabaris or tabasheer; but this name more properly belongs to a phos phorescent substance found in some species of bamboo and of other large grasses growing in dry situations. ( See TABASHEER.) The young shoots of some kinds of bamboo are eaten like aspara gus, or are pickled in vinegar. The seeds of some species are used as rice, and for making a kind of beer. Bamboos are generally of very rapid growth, and they are often found in arid situa tions, which would otherwise be destitute of vegetation. It is not improbable that they may yet be employed, where they do not naturally abound. The species common in the West Indies (Bantbase vulyuris) is supposed to have been in troduced from the East Indies. A number of species are hardy in England and in parts of the United States, where they are used in landscape gardening. drundineria macrosperma is native to the Southern United States, where it forms extensive canebrakes.