World Bamboo Day • September 18
Bamboo looks simple enough: tall green stalks, lots of leaves, maybe a panda somewhere nearby. But behind that familiar look are some surprisingly strange facts.
🚀 Some bamboo can grow almost a meter in one day.
Certain bamboo species have been recorded growing up to 91 centimeters in 24 hours. You could mark its height in the morning and actually notice the difference before bedtime.
🌱 Bamboo is actually grass.
It may look like a tree, but bamboo belongs to the grass family. Some species stay small, while giant bamboos can reach around 30 meters tall.
🌸 Some bamboo can wait decades before flowering.
Many species stay flowerless for years or even more than a century. Some flower together across huge areas and may die after flowering. A few have flowering cycles as long as 120 years.
🎋 A bamboo stalk does not slowly get thicker like a tree trunk.
A new bamboo shoot comes out of the ground already close to the diameter it will keep. It grows rapidly upward, but that individual stalk does not become wider year after year.
🧐 Not every bamboo is hollow.
Most bamboo stalks have hollow sections between their joints, but some species have very thick walls or even solid stems. So the familiar bamboo tube is common, but not universal.
🍲 Fresh bamboo shoots should not simply be eaten raw.
Some bamboo shoots naturally contain compounds that can release cyanide. Proper preparation and cooking greatly reduce them, which is why bamboo shoots are traditionally cooked before eating.
🎹 One of the strangest bamboo instruments is right here in the Philippines.
The famous Bamboo Organ in Las Piñas has 1,031 pipes, with 902 made of bamboo. Completed in 1824, it was later damaged by a typhoon and an earthquake, restored in the 1970s, and remains functional today.
Other countries also have bamboo mouth organs. In Laos, for example, the traditional khaen uses bamboo tubes with metal reeds and is played by blowing through an air chamber. It is very different from the keyboard-and-pipes system of the Las Piñas Bamboo Organ.
🐼 Pandas really do eat ridiculous amounts of bamboo.
Bamboo is not very rich in nutrients, so giant pandas may eat around 12 to 38 kilograms of it in a day. For them, apparently, “just one more bamboo” can last all afternoon.
Bamboo has been growing beside humans for centuries, yet it still has a few surprises hiding between those familiar green joints. Sometimes the most ordinary-looking plants have the strangest stories.
⌨ ᴛʸᵖⁱⁿᵍ ᴏᵘᵗ ᵒᶠ ᵗʰᵉ ʙˡᵘᵉ ᵈᵃʳᵉᵐ ᵐᵘˢⁱᶜ ᵇˡᵒᵍ