Bamboo
Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...
is a group of
wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...
y perennial plants in the true grass family
Poaceae
Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns an ...
. In the tribe ''
Bambuseae
The Bambuseae are the most diverse tribe of bamboos in the grass family (Poaceae). They consist of woody species from tropical regions, including some giant bamboos. Their sister group are the small herbaceous bamboos from the tropics in tribe Ol ...
'' also known as bamboo, there are 91
genera
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclat ...
and over 1,000
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriat ...
. The size of bamboo varies from small annuals to giant timber bamboo. Bamboo evolved only 30 to 40 million years ago, after the demise of the dinosaurs.
Bamboo species can be divided into clumping (sympodial) and running (monopodial) species. Clumping species grow from the soil in a slowly expanding tuft. Running species send underground rhizomes to produce shoots several metres from the parent plant.
All Chinese names for bamboo contain the character "
竹". This character by itself simply means bamboo, however it enters into hundreds of other words and phrases. "Every day our written language reminds us of the antiquity of China's partnership with bamboo." (Dr. W. Y. Hsiung). This character, pronounced ''zhu'' depicts two leafed twigs of bamboo.
Species
Valiha and Cathariostachys, Two New Bamboo Genera (Gramineae-Bambusoideae) from Madagascar. Soejatmi Dransfield, Kew Bulletin, Vol. 53, No. 2 (1998), pp. 375-397
/ref>
References
External links
{{fibers, state=collapsed
*Species
Bamboo
Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...
Bamboo
Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...
Bamboo
Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...
Bamboos, List
Bamboos, List
Bamboos, List
Bamboos, List
Bamboos, List
Bamboos, List
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