Bamboo
any species of the botanical genus bambusa, and especially the best known one, bambusa arundinacea. It is a giant grass , sometimes reaching the height of 40 or more feet, which is found everywhere in the tropics of the Eastern Hemisphere, and has been introduced into the West Indies, the Southern States of America, and various other regions of the Western world . It has the usual characteristics of a grass-the cylindrical stem, of flinty hardness externally, while soft or even hollow within.
The uses to which the several species of bamboo are put in the regions where cies they grow are almost innumerable. In housebuilding they furnish the framework of the sides and roof, with the joists and other parts of the flooring. Bows, arrows, shafts of lances, and other warlike weapons can be made from the stems of bamboo, as can ladders, rustic BANBURY bridges, the masts of vessels, walking sticks, water pipes , flutes. The seeds are eaten by the poorer classes in parts of India; and in the West Indies the tops of the tender shoots are pickled and made to supply the place of asparagus. warm dian, but much cultivated in