BambooGramineae, the grass family, has provided civilization throughout history with an abundance of food and many other uses. The three most economically important plants in the world are the grasses: wheat, corn and rice. Humanity probably would not have survived without grasses. The subfamily Bambusoideae is certainly no exception. These are the bamboos. Made up of 75 genera and more than 1000 species, these unique plants have played a diverse and important role in the development of society as we know it today.MorphologyBamboo is made up of a system of segmented axes. This is represented by the regular internodal lengths and prominent nodes (McClure 10). They look like telescopic antennas, but with a constant diameter. Thatch is the aerial stem and is the one used for most of the many applications. The thatch is woody and hollow or solid, but most species have some degree of hollowness. The length and thickness of the culm vary considerably between species. Some species can reach a height of 130 feet and a diameter of more than a foot – it has been reported that they grow nearly two inches every hour (Hanke 291). Indeed, it would be impressive to see, certainly not like the grasses most of us are familiar with. Branches, also segmented. come from thatch. On the branches there are leaves with petioles. The fact that the leaves have petioles helps distinguish bamboos from other grasses. The leaves and young shoots are the parts eaten by Pandas. The Panda does not subsist on any other plant or food source. The bamboos alone keep them strong. We'll talk about this later. New culms, or shoots, are produced from an extensive rhizome system. Simply, rhizomes are modified stems, usually growing underground (Fig. 1). Rhizomes cause the “clumping habit” of growth exhibited by bamboos. “Tufted habit” refers to culms growing close together, like a “tuft of grass,” so to speak. There are basically two types of rhizomes. pachymorph and leptomorph. Most species exhibit both, to a greater or lesser degree. Pachymorphic rhizomes are very compact. They are associated with autumn growth and produce a dense clump of culms. Leptomorph rhizomes, associated with spring growth, spread out a little more. than pachymorphic, in some cases much more. In other words, they are responsible for the lateral growth of a given stand or clump of a bamboo species..