Bamboo

“ The children loved the graceful bamboo, and named her Silver Mist; but the big bamboo looked down upon her with scorn.
“You bend and bow to every breeze. Have you no pride? It is not fitting that a bamboo should show fear. I stand straight and strong and bow to no one,” he said.
“You are going to be of some great use in the world, I am sure,” said the humble bamboo. “I am only fit to trim the houses for the New Year’s feast. But you will become a beam in some great house or, maybe, even in a palace.” ”

“ Suddenly the green grove of bamboos was flooded with a bright soft light, as if the full moon had risen over the spot. Looking round in astonishment, he saw that the brilliance was streaming from one bamboo. The old man, full of wonder, dropped his axe and went towards the light. On nearer approach he saw that this soft splendour came from a hollow in the green bamboo stem, and still more wonderful to behold, in the midst of the brilliance stood a tiny human being, only three inches in height, and exquisitely beautiful in appearance. ”

“ Through groves of cryptomeria, maple, fir, willow, wild cherry and Spanish chestnuts we travel. Past great clumps of bamboo, which to see only is to be able to picture the mighty growth of their graceful, feathery foliage; by picturesque villages, with their angular brown thatched roofs crowding low down over their mud-wattled walls, nestling amongst banyon groves interspersed with persimmon trees, bare of leaves but laden with bunches of golden fruit. Then we emerge on to the open country, where the cultivation is so exquisitely neat that it resembles a succession of kitchen gardens. ”

“ The body of each bamboo is hollow and jointed, in a similar way to wheat stalks, with bands or knots, by which wonderful contrivance both are rendered strong and flexible, suited to the several designs of creative Wisdom. The bamboo imperceptibly tapers from the earth upwards. It is the variety of sizes in each cluster, however, which gives grace and beauty to the whole as they move with every breath of air, or are swayed by the strong wind. ”

“ The bamboo, known to us only as one of the plants least considered in a large, well-kept garden, or as a polished walking stick, as the legs of a fancy table of uncertain equilibrium or as a tobacco box ably worked by Chinese or Japanese fingers, in the free forest becomes a colossal inhabitant. ”

“ Of all those plants, the tall and graceful bamboo ranks among the most beautiful. Everywhere it is found, growing in groups and clusters, scattered with great profusion and variety over hill and plain, along the streams, and around the native huts and villages. ”

“ Beneath his massive form, colour is lost in shadowy but closer at hand are the dark pervading greens of the trees and vegetation, palms and tree ferns and banana trees helping by their graceful form to provide the truely tropical features, while the equally graceful clumps of bamboo sway and creak in the light breeze, their pointed leaves supplying that perpetual flutter and movement which one associates with the birches and beeches of one's native land. The cultivated patches on hillside and valley are rich in colour. ”

“ I also saw a Bamboo growing as a creeper, with small short joints, feathered with slender leafy branches at every joint, and stretching in festoons from tree to tree along the side of the road, or hanging suspended in single lines from a projecting branch, and swinging gently with the passing breeze. The appearance of the Bamboo when growing is exceedingly graceful. Sometimes the canes, as thick as a man's arm at the base, rise forty or fifty feet high, fringed at the joints, which are two or three feet apart, with short branches of long, lance-shaped leaves. ”

“ But, should it be the visitor's good fortune to watch the repairing of one of these lifelike images, he will find that the entire body is a frame woven of split bamboo, within which the plants are placed, their roots packed in damp earth and bound about with straw, while their leaves and flowers are pulled through the basket frame and woven into whatsoever pattern the artistic eye and skillful fingers of the gardener may select. ”

“ It is often found blooming beside tall coffee-trees, themselves full of deep green clustering berries, the tree, where grown for ornamental purposes, being permitted to reach full proportions. Here one sees also a profusion of the rich green bamboo in prolific groves by the roadside, or surrounding humble cottages, thus forming a welcome shade. In midsummer, so rapid is the growth of the bamboo that every twenty-four hours adds two feet to its height, or in other words, it grows an inch each hour throughout the day and the night. ”

“ Bamboo ́, the common name of the arborescent grasses belonging to the genus Bambūsa. There are many species, belonging to the warmer parts of Asia, Africa, and America, and growing from a few feet to as much as 100 feet, requiring much moisture to thrive properly. A peculiarity of the bamboo family is that they flower on reaching a certain age, generally about 130 years. ”

“ My new province is a land of bamboo-groves:
Their shoots in spring fill the valleys and hills.
The mountain woodman cuts an armful of them
And brings them down to sell at the early market.
Things are cheap in proportion as they are common;
For two farthings, I buy a whole bundle.
I put the shoots in a great earthen pot
And heat them up along with boiling rice.
The purple nodules broken,— like an old brocade ”

“ On the watershed, bamboo-jungles extend over an area of many square miles. The species which is thus found in such immense masses is the same which is so prolific in the lower terraces of the Abyssinian highlands. In the manner of their growth these bamboos remind me of an asparagus-bed in the summer-time, hundreds of sprouts start up from a single root, and in graceful curves droop over towards the ground. ”

“ One of the most beautiful is the bamboo. Some of the canes, nearly a foot in circumference at the base, rise to the height of forty or fifty feet, their slight, feathery-looking points, like huge plumes, waving with the slightest breeze, and assisting to keep up a circulation of the air. ”

“ The profusely growing bamboo will make his house or bridge the streams for him. Its delicate young shoots can be eaten. Its bark gives excellent lashing. Slit longitudinally it will serve as an aqueduct and convey the water from the mountain torrents to his door. Cut into lengths it makes cups and bottles for him. Should he need a cooking-pot, a length of bamboo cut off below a knot can be filled with water and placed on the fire; and the water will be boiled and food cooked long before the green wood is much charred. For food the forest offers deer, pigs, and fowl. ”

“ In the Bamboo Garden, the author has viewed the bamboo chiefly from the standpoint of acclimatisation in England, especially in the damper western and southern counties, for dampness seems essential to the life of a bamboo; in fact, so greedy is it of moisture that in many [225] countries where the rainfall in summer is small the bamboo is condemned, as it sucks the life from surrounding plants. ”

“ Plate C shows a graduated series of studies of the bamboo, in which are depicted with marvellous fidelity the varying stages of its growth, from the early budding stem to the perfect branch with full and flowing leaves, drooping in the silent air, or gently swayed by the breeze. The bamboo may almost be ranked as the national tree of Japan, and plays an important part in the social economy of the country ”

“ The wood of the bamboo is hard, yet light, and possesses a fine grain, though fibrous. The outward surface is smooth and highly polished by Nature, and the knot very difficult to penetrate by any other means than a saw. The twigs or branches are covered with sharp thorns, in all probability a natural provision to defend the young trees from herbaceous animals. I have heard of the bamboo blossoming when arrived at full age ”

“ Hitherto the "Bamboo" has been collected and treated in a condition more or less of maturity, or without regard to its age; and when the plant has attained its full growth the woody fibre is extremely dense and indurated; when old, indeed, the exterior portion of the stem of many varieties of the plant becomes so hard and silicious that it will, like flint, strike fire with steel. ”

“ There was also a climbing variety of bamboo, which scrambled up to the tops of the largest trees. The undergrowth in places was most luxuriant and consisted of different species of palms, rattans, tree-ferns, pandanus, giant ginger, pipers, pothos, begonias, bananas, caladiums, ferns, selaginellas and lycopodiums, and many variegated plants. Growing on many of the trees were some fine orchids. Chief amongst them may be mentioned a very beautiful “vanda,” which grew mostly on trees in the open grass country, and which I witnessed in full bloom during my stay here. ”

“ The bamboo grows in vast feathery thickets along these Sicilian waters, and the slightly angular precision of its stem and foliage allies itself well with the classic clearness of the landscape—a landscape which, in spite of an occasional excess of semi-tropical vegetation, yet retains the Greek quality of producing intense effects with a minimum of material. ”

“ By the Japanese themselves the bamboo is not regarded as a tree. In their eyes it forms a category apart, so that they speak of "trees and bamboos." Properly it belongs to the grasses:—it is just a giant grass, and nothing more. Its rate of growth is astonishing compared with that of most other members of the vegetable kingdom, sometimes several feet in the course of four-and-twenty hours. Indeed, from every point of view the bamboo presents interesting subject-matter for observation, while practically it is one of nature's choicest gifts to man. ”

“ The light and strong poles which the coolies place over their shoulders for bearing burdens are almost invariably of bamboo; and where it grows abundantly it is used for making fences and sheds, and for the construction of nearly every implement of agriculture. Its fibres are twisted into rope, or softened into pulp for paper; every article of furniture is made of bamboo, and so are hats, umbrellas, fans, cups, and a thousand other things. ”

“ What the palm-tree of many species is to the natives of South America or tropical Africa, such is the bamboo to the inhabitants of Southern Asia and its islands. It is doubtful whether nature has conferred upon these people any greater boon than this noble plant, the light and graceful culms of which are applied by them to a multitude of useful purposes. ”

“ The "Bamboo," being an endogenous plant, (that is to say, growing from inside) composed mainly of fibrous tissue, combined with the ordinary sappy and other extractive matter common to all vegetable growth, the stems do not require the elaborate preparatory manipulation which is necessary to separate the fibrous, from the extraneous and woody matter, which in exogenous plants (i. e. growing from, or on the outside) must be removed, as it is only the true fibre which is useable for Textile Manufactures. ”

“ The century plant shares with or even surpasses the true bamboo in its reputation of offering most of the necessities of human life. Food, drink, clothing, building material, forage, military barricades, razor-strops with soap and brush, medicine, pins, needles, paper, glue and a red coloring matter are said to be afforded by it. ”

“ The bamboo never grows monotonous. It presents forms and colors of wonderful attractiveness and variety, and so fully dealt with has it been by the brush of the painter and the pen of the poet, that it might well be given a fine-art gallery and a library of its own. ”

“ It will help us, perhaps, to appreciate properly, the value and manifold uses of trees if we consider the uses to which a single one of the many species is put. A Chinese gives us the following account of the Bamboo.
"The bamboo plant is cultivated almost everywhere; it is remarkable for its shade and beauty. ”

“ No other plant of the reedy order, not even excepting{52} a bamboo, gives quite the same impression of vigorous, of almost insolent energy as does this one. It adapts itself moreover perfectly to our sandy soil, and so long as one sees that it receives a reasonable amount of moisture, seems to ask for little else. Next follow two or three plants of Arundinaria japonica, and below these again Arundinaria, or Bambusa palmata, skirting the edge of the pond, and passing on into the so-called bog. ”

“ Uses of the Bamboo.—Perhaps more than any other single type of vegetation, the bamboo seems specially adapted for the use of half-civilized man in a wild tropical country; and the purposes to which it is applied are almost endless. ”

“ For building purposes the bamboo is still more important. In many parts of India the framework of the houses of the natives is chiefly composed of this material. In the flooring, whole stems, four or live inches in diameter, are laid close to each other, and across these, laths of split bamboo, about an inch wide, are fastened down by filaments of rattan cane. ”

“ They are hollow, and jointed, and of a hard, woody texture, the outside being coated with silex, and the inside consisting of a close, fibrous and very hard wood. The bamboo grows with great rapidity; and the shoots, when quite young, are sometimes cut and boiled like asparagus: but when full grown and vigorous, it becomes a large and strong tree. ”

“ Thus with a trunk of bamboo, with the pith of a calchual, or of any other soft and spongy tree, they improvise a body which resembles that of a man, give it a coat of water-glue and plaster and paint it afterwards in most vivid colors, literally bathing it in blood. ”