Bamboos

Bamboo
Bamboo forest at Huangshan, China
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Clade:	Angiosperms
Clade:	Monocots
Clade:	Commelinids
Order:	Poales
Family:	Poaceae
Clade:	BOP clade
Subfamily:	Bambusoideae
Tribes
Arundinarieae Bambuseae Olyreae
Diversity
>1,400 species in 115 genera
Synonyms
Olyroideae Pilg. (1956) Parianoideae Butzin (1965)

Bamboo
The Chinese character for "bamboo"
Chinese name
Chinese	竹
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin zhú IPA [ʈʂǔ] Wu Suzhounese tsoh Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization jūk Jyutping zuk1 Southern Min Tâi-lô tik
Japanese name
Kanji	竹
Transcriptions Romanization take

The bamboos ⁱ/bæmˈbuː/ are evergreen perennial flowering plants in the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. In bamboo, as in other grasses, the internodal regions of the stem are usually hollow and the vascular bundles in the cross section are scattered throughout the stem instead of in a cylindrical arrangement. The dicotyledonous woody xylem is also absent. The absence of secondary growth wood causes the stems of monocots, including the palms and large bamboos, to be columnar rather than tapering.

Bamboos include some of the fastest-growing plants in the world, due to a unique rhizome-dependent system. Certain species of bamboo can grow 91 cm (3 ft) within a 24-hour period, at a rate of almost 4 cm (1.5 in) an hour (a growth around 1 mm every 90 seconds, or one inch every 40 minutes).Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. Bamboos are of notable economic and cultural significance in South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, being used for building materials, as a food source, and as a versatile raw product. Bamboo has a higher specific compressive strength than wood, brick, or concrete and a specific tensile strength that rivals steel.