BAMBOO AS A ROD MATERIAL 37 



arose from the specific use of cane in the manufac- 

 ture thereof. 



Bamboo-stalk is remarkable for its combined 

 hardness, strength, lightness, and elasticity, and these 

 qualities, together with its availability and the ease 

 with which it may be split into narrow strips, at once 

 commend it for a multitude of uses, such as for mats, 

 baskets, pipe-stems, spear and lance shafts, flutes, 

 palaquin-poles, masts, for building furniture, houses, 

 and bridges. 



In all species the outer covering of the stem is 

 extremely hard and siliceous, and its walls become 

 progressively softer and more friable from with- 

 out toward the inner pith. The knots of some spe- 

 cies of bamboo exude a sweetish juice which expo- 

 sure to the air thickens into a gum that the Greeks 

 called " Indian honey." The fruit of some varieties 

 is a grain, of others a nut, or again a fleshy product 

 more like an apple. Some young bamboo-shoots are 

 eaten like asparagus with us. 



As has been said, bamboo grows in all sizes, from 

 the species attaining only a few feet in height to the 

 Bambusa Guadua of New Granada or the Java 

 article, which may have trunks sixteen inches in 

 diameter; and the stems of the different species vary 

 much in the thickness of the woody part. A 

 smoothly cut cross-section of the stalk will show its 

 walls to be cellular or honeycombed in character, 

 the cells being more closely compacted as the outer 



