Random Fact – Bamboo
The Bamboo plant is a member of the grass family, which has been used for years to make houses, furniture, boats, piping, baskets, and musical instruments. The plant looks like a tree and its most striking feature is that most produce seeds only once in their lifetime — but a bamboo plant can live for more than 100 years. In 1990, scientists announced that they are developing a way of producing bamboo flowers more rapidly, which may be very important to its cultivation. The woody, hollow aerial stems (culms) of bamboo grow in branching clusters from a thick underground stem (rhizome). The culms often form a dense undergrowth that excludes other plants. Bamboo culms can attain heights ranging from about 4 to 6 inches in the smallest species to more than 130 feet in the largest.