Bamboo Glossary
ALL ABOUT THE BAMBOO |
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DISCOVER THE BAMBOO The BAMBOO belongs to the family of Graminaceous which understands great number of plants which weigh a certain weight in the economic balance; without them humanity would have been very different. The Bamboo, the origin of its name Bamboo: its name is of Malayan origin. During its combustion, the air contained inside the hollow stems dilates, causing the explosion of the entrenœuds: BAM! and it is the air while escaping which makes the BOOO Some concepts on the bamboos The bamboos are neither of the trees nor of the shrubs, but of grasses! They are narrowly related with the plants which constitute our grass and all cereals. The bamboos have a great diversity of appearance. They can have the aspect of a tree, a bush or a grass; they can crawl, hang, be rolled up around the trees with the manner of much of tropical species and push very quickly: they can take up to one metre in twenty four hours under certain conditions. their sheets remain green all the year. The bamboo is very resistant, which makes of it a structural component very snuffed in Asia where it amongst other things has many uses in the daily purposes. The Bamboo, a plant full with symbolic systems The bamboo symbolises humility, modesty, perpetual youth, old age alerts, the joy, the laughter. It is also the symbol of peace, serenity, happiness, the happiness, the flexibility, constancy and obstinacy. The history of the BAMBOO The BAMBOO and appeared there are surroundings 30 to 40 million years. There N is no wild BAMBOO known in Europe currently, but that does not mean that there was not of it. Fossil BAMBOOS were discovered in France in the south of LYON, but it is in Asia and South America that they the most extended geographically and affirmed their diversity. The natural distribution of the bamboos goes from the 46_ème parallel north with the 47ème parallel south but one cultivates it beyond the 60ème parallel north. The BAMBOO has an underground and air part The system racinaire is very important but it is him which also poses the most problems: many are the gardeners amateurs who regret having one day planted of the bamboos; they are if invading. But this propensity to invade the ground is not characteristic with all the bamboos. The system racinaire is the rhizome; they are not true roots but underground stems. There are two kinds of rhizomes: - sympodial which forms a tuft. - monopodial which is tracing. The air system is determining for the use of the BAMBOO: it is him which gives him a decorative value. It consists of stems called thatches, and sheets. Thatches consist of nodes (full) and internodes (hollow). The characteristics external of the internodes make the decorative value of the BAMBOOS. A sheath wraps each bud, then this fundamental protective structure for the growth, After having filled are role, is rejected or preserved on some. It thus makes it possible also for some to identify the BAMBOOS because it is it which makes their appearance. The sheets can have several colours and their form, their grouping, their density also contribute to the decorative value of the BAMBOO. Flowering, on the other hand, does not contribute to the beauty of the plant and often leads has its death. The BAMBOO UNDER the MICROSCOPE The BAMBOO develops its biomass with an attractive speed in hardly some month, but the internal structures must act during all the life of thatch. The growth of bamboo does not have a sheet to limit its energy needs, on the other hand it contains a great quantity of carbohydrate which is used to him as energy source. This one is dispatched since the rhizome and thatches older by a very powerful mechanism. Contrary to wood, the BAMBOO has a relatively simple anatomical structure. - The skin ensures a protection against the losses of water and degradations external. - The hollow interior has also cells barriers. Thatch consists of 55% of cells of storage, 35% of fibres for resistance, conducting sugar and water fabric 10%. Two large vessels and of the filter vessels form the vascular beams. They are surrounded by fibre ensuring resistance. The large tropical BAMBOOS have additional fibre beams ensuring a greater stability. The vascular vessels are placed between cells of storage, the woody and filter vessels are perfectly vertical and ramify only on the level of the nodes. Outside thatches, the vessels are smaller and denser, towards the interior, they are larger and fewer. The conjunctive fabrics and the vascular cells are concentrated inside while outside the fibres ensure resistance. The fibres account for 60 to 70% of the weight of fabrics, from 2 to 3 mm, they are longer than those of wood hard and less than those of conifers. The fibrous cells have a structure laminated to ten layers, consisted of microfibre directed differently from a layer to the other (comparable with wood laminated).The rhizomes consist of cells being used as storage and of fibrous fabrics ensure resistance as well as channels of ventilation for the bamboos pushing in wet ground. Its environmental qualities The BAMBOO with qualities of extraordinary environmental adaptation. One finds it in very diverse ecosystems everywhere in the world. These ecological qualities enable us to answer many challenges launched by L man. Its aesthetic qualities constitute an additional advantage while improving and revalorising the ecosystems create by the man. The BAMBOO offers to us what no plant could offer before him. With him, we introduce into our landscapes a plant with the potentialities ever equalised: - A rapid growth. - A vertical growth allowing him to be used of screen and fence, to protect the intimacy and to make folding screen. - A great resistance to the dryness and pollution, a promptness and a solidity incomparable. - a system racinaire with rhizomes preventing the erosion of the grounds. it formation of thickets and afforestations attracting various species of birds and animals needing covers. - A capacity to recycle a great quantity of carbonic gas (12 tons/hectare) and a production D oxygenates of 35% higher than that of the trees in equivalent situation. - A food source (often edible growths). - A renewable resource, allowing a local harvest for the daily needs, like plant of agriculture and sylviculture. - A sensory comfort (cure, meditation). - Decorative properties bringing environment and relaxation. THE BAMBOO IN OUR ENVIRONMENT The function of the BAMBOO is very different in Asia from on our premises. Integral part of the life of each Asian, it remains very limited on our premises, even if it is in full evolution and that we start has to best appreciate for these qualities. (Edible Parquet floors, paper, furniture, growths etc) Mainly used in plant of ornament, its use depends on the variety of the plant. (tracing variety or not, height, density and colour of foliage, colour and diameter of canes etc) Here some varieties : - FARGESIA They are appropriate well has a great number D applications, and more particularly for the small gardens. The cespiteuses species and forms are retained in this case there. These BAMBOOS not tracing are easy to contain without barrier with rhizomes. They are the species most interesting for our climates, it are among best the rustic species, they survived the winters of beginning of the year 80 but will be more sensitive to the long periods of dryness. Their heights vary from 1,5 to 8 metres with thatches going up to 5 centimetres in diameter. These BAMBOOS have a gracious port with many ramifications and a great quantity of small sheets which make bend thatches after the rain (whining aspect). - INDOCALAMUS they point out the Sasa kind, by their broad sheets, and only one branch per safe bud with the point or one counts to three branches. They offer a healthier aspect and more expenses that them Sasa. Andocalamus latifolius is less tracing species of the kind leptomorphe It is a plant of shade which forms pretty tufts. Originating in China, it measures up to 3 metres in height. Its falling down sheets of 30 centimetres by 5 centimetres are particularly elegant when they are frosted. It is appropriate for the solid masses, isolated tufts, covers set up ground. - PHYLLOSTACHYS For much of people, the BAMBOO must have thatches a few centimetres in diameter. More than in the varieties described previously, the phyllostachys can have good diameters, and they in addition to thatches often very coloured. With seventy-five species and two hundred forms, it is an important kind. Are surface of distribution is very wide and goes up in the moderate and subtropical areas of the east of Asia up to 3700 metres of altitude. Impressing with heights of more than 20 metres according to the species and the climate or they push. Tracing they can this propagate on very large surfaces. (to envisage a barrier with rhizomes at the time of the plantation) - PLEIOBLASTUS Kind with rhizomes very tracing, it must be absolutely contained. It is originating in Japan. Only the foliage has an interest. They are rather dwarf species used covers ground with it. - PSEUDOSASA Kind with tracing rhizome. In an unforeseeable and irregular way, a protection is recommended. These large BAMBOOS can reach 4 to 5 metres height. They are to be used as impenetrable hedge. It is used as refuge with many small animals. - SIFTED On the taxonomic level, the kind sifted did not deliver all its mysteries. Originating in Japan, one also finds it in China and Korea and until with 50ème of northern latitude. They are average BAMBOOS tracing with large sheets located at the summits of thatches. - SASAELLA Similar to Sifted with smaller sheets and more still tracing. - SEMIARUNDINARIA Tracing BAMBOOS, with thatches rights as I which are hardly curved in spite of their 8 metres height. With the sun thatches greens become gradually red brick with brown purple. Little tracing they is appropriate in isolated tuft, for high hedges, out of screen. Very leafy they make many short and collected branches. - SHIBATAEA They are tracing BAMBOOS with thatches courts, comprising from three to seven branches per node, divided primarily into Eastern China. One height metre plants very compact to broad sheets, they are advised in low hedge, hedge of separation. The solid mass is to be protected with a barrier with rhizome. APPLICATION PROGRAMS STRUCTURE The BAMBOO is used for a very long time in architecture. Its rapid growth, its physical properties make of it a material of mark in architecture. Rectilinear, it work and is worked easily with few average mechanics. A power of fabulous range because it is rich in silicon dioxide which in fact of vegetable steel. The controlled exploitation of the bamboo does not carry any damage to the plantations, because the rhizome which is the trunk is under ground and one cuts only thatches, whereas in the case of exploitation of trees, the whole tree is destroyed with each demolition. It still inspires by many famous architects, who use it more and more in their modern achievements. The BAMBOO is as well used as materials suitable for construction in it even, that like element of building site being used for the construction of the realisation. We can take for example the Zeri house carried out for the world exhibition of Hanover in 2000. On a surface 40 m in diameter, carried by a score of 14 height metre pillars, it is a cathedral of 3500 thatches. THERE is also the roof of the club of golf of Penalised in Girardot (COLOMBIA), the greatest construction ever carried out in bamboo. INDUSTRY When one speaks about BAMBOO, one thinks of traditional applications: basket making, purposes artisanal, rods, edible bamboo shoots, and the holidays with the sun, the East. But it is also a fabulous industrial material, having chemical properties is mechanical single. Woody plant with the fastest growth, it is a renewable source of wood for industry. Present in many fields, construction for the scaffolding, the parquet floors and ceilings; and while there looking at more closely one will realise that it is everywhere in the forms of matches, cure teeth, paper or drug, or in the form still of filters coffee has, of bags has cement, of pencils etc Its use goes back to several millenia but the industrialisation of these various applications dates only the XX century. A passion for the products in BAMBOO appeared in the years 1990 what revealed it on all the international markets. Many techniques of processing one developed as well as possible to exploit the performances of the BAMBOO in many fields which enables us to develop and to exploit these fabulous physical properties as well as possible. What often gives him a place of leader in the many fields or it is used. The BAMBOO also has a dominating place in the manufacture of many musical instruments antique like modern in substitution for wood used in general. FOOD In food medium the BAMBOO is used for its edible growths and the juice obtained of its sheets. The production is of 10 tons growths a year and hectare. In gastronomy it is very rependu as well in the manufacture of the ustensils as in the same mets them. ART AND PHILISOPHIE Very present in the floral art at Japan (ikébana), it conquered Europe in the form dried in the years 1970, and years 2000 let predict its conquest in the fresh form. Still there in philosophy it has a very important place especially in Asia or its physical properties are not regarded as its only assets, but it is used for its correspondences morals. Ca flexibility makes it possible to understand the social relations and personal. The interest for the BAMBOO undoubtedly profited with the environment. The purists will say that the design can be associated only has an industrialised human creation, and that consequently the products and the artisanal furniture which employs the bamboo in its natural form will not be described as design. For my share, I would qualify design all that makes a style, which carries out an idea, which represents by its form a work of the spirit, that it is for a creation industrial or single, by associating the identity of the creator with that of the matter. And the bamboo in this association, brings much character and as much of emotion than than the spirit of the creator brings itself by his work of cutting and shaping. For what it brings to us, for what it inspires to us, for its ecological qualities, the bamboo is a product of the future, which will be used more and more in modern creations. |
Category : - BAMBOO