What is Bamboo?
Bamboo is a tree, which are used for many kinds of home-development. All the village house construction are fully depends on bamboo.
How to look like bamboo?
It looks like a hard tree who have no branches. The color of the trees growing on sandy soil is light purple. The color of loamy soil is light green. Normally this tree is 40 feet tall. Suitable for making house pillars.
Classification of Bamboo.
Kingdom:
Plantae
Class:
Angiosperms
Subcategory:
Monocots
Order:
Poales
Family:
Poaceae
Sub-Family:
Bambusoideae
Sub-Tribe:
Bambusodae
Tribe:
Bambuseae
How many types of bamboo?(According to Color)
Many kinds of it. But the green kinds have top popularity. Green kinds can grow any place. Give good result. Strong and high performance.
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Light purple.
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Light green.
Different types of Bamboo.(According to species).
A. Bamboo with continuous flowers.
Some species of bamboo flower bloom every year. Bamboos from African regions flower to bloom every year.
Unlike other bamboo, this bamboo does not die after flowering.
B. Bamboo that flower sporadically.
This type of bamboo flowers every 5-10 years. Such flowers can be seen in bamboo gardens due to adverse weather conditions such as excessive drought and rainfall.
This type of bamboo species is very rare in the world. Such flowers are found on the bamboo species Guadua Angustifolia.
C. Bamboos bearing mass flowers.
Some of these bamboos flower after 50 years, some even after a hundred and twenty years.
Bamboos of the same age bloom together anywhere in the world.
Bamboo dies after flowering. A type of radish bamboo called Melocanna baccifera grows in the Indian state of Mizoram, the Chin state of Burma, and the hilly regions of Bangladesh which flowers after 48 years.
Meanwhile, Japanese bamboo Phyllostachys bambusoids can flower up to 130 years later.
Have they flower or fruit?
They can grow flower and fruits. The fruits and flower are grow in bunches. They can give flower or fruits after 100 years old.
Different species of bamboo flower at different times. Bamboo is divided into three categories based on flowering.
Mass flowering of Bamboo
Bamboos of the same species of the same age bloom together regardless of the environment anywhere in the world. This phenomenon is called mass flowering. Mass flowering is seen in bamboo.
Let me explain with an example, suppose you plant many seeds or shoots/suckers/rhizomes of Melocanna baccifera in Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, and South America. After 50 years, you will see that the bamboo planted on all the continents have flowered on the same day.
Again, the new growth of this bamboo will take flowers after 50 years. Environment, weather, nothing can break their flowering rule after 50 years.
Scientists are still searching for the exact reason why this happens. Some scientists think that all the bamboo of today’s world was born from primitive bamboo (mother plant) through cross-fertilization.
That is, the mother plant slowly divided and gave birth to new bamboo. The process is similar to cloning. Since bamboo flowers are late, propagation by division of the body is the easiest way.
Breeding through seeds results in the exchange of genes resulting in the mixing of new traits between physical traits. Purity is lost in it. But the purity of traits is preserved when new offspring are created by the direct division of the body.
Therefore, the genetic characteristics of the same species of bamboo are the same anywhere in the world. So regardless of the environment, all the bamboos bloom together. The gene responsible for all flowering is the same.
When the genetic alarm clock responsible for flowering goes off, all bamboos flower. This genetic code of bamboo has remained unchanged for thousands of years.
Again, many scientists have opined that the mathematical rules of flowering are determined within each plant cell of the bamboo plant. In this rule, when the time is right, all the bamboos bloom together.
Bamboo death flower.
Mass flowering occurs in bamboo that begins to die after flowering. After fruiting, the bamboo dies completely. Why is that? In response to this, scientists have given two theories.
First, the flower and seed production process of bamboo is quite complex. With the amount of vitality bamboo consumes to produce flowers and seeds, bamboo dies.
The second theory is that the mother bamboo plants themselves die to give way to new seedlings.
Bamboo fruit.
After the bamboo blossoms, the fruit is produced from this flower. The bamboo fruit looks like a betel nut or olive, and some look like a small box. Bamboo dies after fruiting. Bamboo fruits fall and are spread under the tree.
Medicinal properties of bamboo fruit.
Bamboo fruit has many medicinal properties. Bamboo fruit is an aphrodisiac type of food. Aphrodisiac food is a special type of food named after the Greek goddess of love and lust, Aphrodite.
Benefits of Bamboo Fruit.
Eating this aphrodisiac food will make you feel great love or overflow with joy. That special moment of intercourse will become more aphrodisiac (libido).
So scholars go to collect bamboo fruits ignoring the danger in the deep forest.
1. The evil symbols of the Bamboo flower.
The people of Mizoram state in India consider bamboo blossoms to be inauspicious. After a long time, when they saw flowers blooming in the bamboo garden, they got scared. They rushed to cut the bamboo flowers. Because…
2. Bamboo flower symbolizes famine.
Bamboo flowers produce many seeds. Flocks of black rats rush to the bamboo forest from far away to eat those seeds. Black rats breed rapidly due to the abundance of food. The number of rats increased at a great rate.
Swarms of these rats can number in the hundreds of millions. Killing these huge numbers of rats is an impossible task. This event is called the ‘rat flood’. When the bamboo fruit is finished, these rats also attack the surrounding area.
The crops of the fields, the crops of the warehouses, the crops of the house – all are eaten and cleared. A great famine descended upon the locality. Many people died of starvation. Along with famine, deadly rat-borne diseases such as plague spread through the area.
Thousands of people died in the epidemic even if they did not die from lack of food. A two-pronged attack at once. In 1862 and 1911, Piro Mizoram province faced famine. From 1958-1959 and from 2006-2008, the mountains were regularly covered with black rats, famine occurred in the entire province.
During 1958-1959, the Assam government paid seventy paise for each rat killed. At least two million rats were killed in Mizoram, but it did not prevent famine.
In 2006, Mizoram’s bamboo trees flowered again. 20 percent of the population faces dire food shortages. A small food crisis also occurs in the hills of Bangladesh. To scientists, this bamboo flower, fruit, and rat flood is still a reservoir of great mystery.
4. Bamboo fruit and Maotam.
A group of black rats gathered in the bamboo garden to eat the bamboo fruit. When the bamboo fruit is gone, the rat eats the crops of the field and barn. The entire state of Mizoram was facing a severe food shortage due to rat infestation.
A great famine occurs. This famine is called Maotam by the people of Mizoram. In the Mizo language, Mao means wealth and Tam means death.
How much average size of the bamboo?
Avarage size of it 30 to 50 feet tall and Wide 12 inches to 15 inches. Leaf are green. Average tall 5 inches and wide 2 inches.
How many years can live a Bambusa arundinacea?
They can survive 90 to 120 years. But after 2 years its eligible for use. After 120 to 150 years, then dried and used by the villagers as fuel.
How much important Bamboo in our daily life?
The people of the village are completely dependent on it. All the work in their house is done with it. Different bags are made with it. Those are eco-friendly. There is a lot of demand for this bag in the market. There are many beautiful baskets with it. Every day thousands of people make these baskets and sell them in the market. They are making a living by selling these.
With it are strong pillars. Different fishing tools are made. It is needed to weave nets.
All about Bamboo
Bamboo blossoms year is a sign of great calamity. We always equate flowers with beauty, so it’s interesting how bamboo flowers can be a sign of disaster. I didn’t understand, so they explained it to us.
Bamboo flowers bloom once in fifty years. That flower produces fruit and after fruiting, the bamboo dies. It happens every fifty years, the last time was in 1958, so this year is that time again. In hilly areas where bamboo grows, everyone sees the bamboos begin to flower, in a few days there will be fruits and then the bamboo will die. Bamboos do not die when they die, new bamboo plants will grow from the seeds of the last fruits they gave before they died. For the next fifty years, the bamboo tree will live – new bamboo trees will grow from the bamboo bush, then after another fifty years it will flower again, and all the bamboo will die. It has been happening for hundreds of years.
Those who are mountain people depend on bamboo in various ways, if suddenly that bamboo becomes desolate then disaster can befall them. But the catastrophe that the local people of Rangamati were talking about was not the destruction of this bamboo, it was another catastrophe.
They said the fruit that comes from the bamboo flower is a very favorite food of rats. So rats love to eat these fruits. And as soon as they eat this fruit, a strange thing happens to them suddenly they start multiplying profusely. Millions of mice are born. The size of the rats is also unusual, very big and a little ferocious, they started attacking in groups. Overnight they devour a crop field. These rats are so numerous that there is no way to prevent them. Local people have named this terrible rat invasion a rat flood for a very good reason. The flood of rats destroys the crops – then comes the famine. People die without food. This terrible calamity lasts for at least three to four years, and then very slowly everything returns to the way it was before. They couldn’t tell us what it was about the bamboo that caused them to suddenly multiply like that, but they swore it was true. Not only the rats breed, but the mountain forest roosters also breed when they eat the seeds of the fruit of the bamboo. Whenever the bamboos bear fruit, the number of forest roosters in the mountains suddenly increases like rats!
They came back from Rangamati with a kind of surprise. The words that the local people have heard from the elders of the family, some things may have been seen by themselves, some of them may be true, some may be an exaggeration, and some may not be true. Much of what I have learned by researching the matter is very strange.
First of all, it is not true that all bamboos die after fifty years of flowering, there are some bamboos that may flower every year. However, it is true that the saying of about fifty years is true for the bamboo of Rangamati, Khagrachari in Bangladesh, or Tripura, Mizoram in India. Everyone who reads newspapers knows about armed separatists in the Mizoram region. These separatists have been fighting in India for about thirty-forty years and it is a big problem for India. It may sound unbelievable that it started because of the bamboo flower.
People of the Mizoram region have been living with bamboo for a long time. They have known for a long time about this bamboo flower and the great calamity that followed it, in 1908 they were in the middle of a famine, and before 1958 they know they will be in this danger again. In the earlier subjugated countries they did not get anything from the British Raj but in independent India, they thought that the government would surely stand by them. They forewarned the government that the time of calamity was coming when everything would die and be overrun by ferocious rats – not even a grain of grain to feed the children! The Indian government dismissed the Mizoram region as superstitious. Indeed, when the disaster struck, the Indian government was unable to cope – countless people died of starvation. The enraged and enraged people of Mizoram then took up arms and started a long secessionist movement, which the Indian government is still reeling from.
What is strange is the increase in rat population during bamboo flowering. This is true but it is not clear exactly how, there are various interpretations. So are bamboo grasses, rice, or wheat plants. We love to eat the seeds of rice and wheat plants as rice and flour, so why is it strange that animals also love to eat the fruits of bamboo trees? Bamboo fruit is very rich in protein like avocado. So when the rat eats it, it really gets fatter. Rats may give birth two or three times a year, but because they are fatter and fresher, their number of births increases. It has been observed that they start giving birth up to eight times a year. So the number of rats started to increase at an alarming rate.
Experts believe that there may be another reason for the increase in the number of rats. After giving birth, male rats begin to eat their own young – the number of offspring a mother rat tries to save somehow perpetuates the rat lineage. When thousands of bamboo bloom together and the flowers start to produce very tasty and nutritious fruits for the mice, suddenly the mice’s lack of food is solved because they have a full stomach by eating the bamboo fruits, they do not need to finish eating their own children. So what would normally have been a few rat pups survive now almost all of them survive, by the dozens. They grow up and start giving birth and suddenly there are only mice and rats.
An attempt was made to exterminate the rats to save them from the flood of rats. Sometimes the government announces that if you kill a rat and cut its tail and submit it, cash will be given for each tail, in that enthusiasm millions of rats are killed but even then the flood of rats cannot be controlled. Man is saved only when it subsides in nature’s own way and not before.
Many people think that when the problem comes from the bamboo flower and when everyone knows long ago when this flower will bloom, then the bamboo should be cut in advance. Then the bamboo can be used, along with flowers, fruits, and rodent problems. A little thought reveals that this is not really a solution and, frankly, a very scary proposition. Cutting bamboo before flowering is like murder, we will unknowingly exterminate this species of bamboo. If an animal is killed while pregnant, can that animal survive? It’s a lot like that.
People in hilly villages are told to plant crops during this period that rats dislike very much, as the flood of rats causes great damage to the crops. Such crops are turmeric and ginger. It has been observed that the strong smell of turmeric and ginger keeps rats hundreds of hands away – there is no question of eating and spoiling.
Despite much searching, I could not find anywhere the relationship between bamboo flowers and fruits and the breeding of forest roosters. Since our local people have said it, there is definitely truth in it, and if there is truth, its explanation must also be found.
Frequently Asked Question(FAQ) About Bamboo.
1. Bamboo have any flower ?
Answer: They have white colour and little flower.
2. Bamboo have any fruit?
Answer: They have green color fruit.
3. What is the scientific name of bamboo?
Answer: Bambusoideae.
4. Can bamboo fruit be eaten?
Answer: Bamboo fruit can be eaten. Bamboo fruit has many medicinal properties. Bamboo fruit is very rare. Bamboo fruit is eaten to increase vitality.
5. When do bamboo flowers bloom?
Answer: Some species of bamboo flower every year. Some species of bamboo flower every 5-10 years. Some of them flower after 50 years, and some of them even after a hundred or twenty years.
6. Where are bamboo fruits found?
Answer: Bamboo fruit is found in deep forests in the hills of Bangladesh.
Information last update,
12 March,2022.