Bamboo Facts

Bamboo, which has been around for over 200 million years, is the fastest growing plant on earth. It is used to make thousands of useful things, including housing, furniture, musical instruments, art utensils, paper, fablics and food. Bamboo is a real symbol of flexibility.

Strong as steel, nuclear tough, and striking beauty in both its natural and finished state, these qualities have given bamboo a longer and more varied role in human cultural evolution than any other plant on earth.

The needle in Alexander Graham Bell's first phonograph was made of bamboo.

In 1882, Thomas Edison used bamboo as filaments in the world's first light bulb manufacturing.

Some bamboo can grow 18 inches per day and reaches a height of 100 feet. A bamboo stand generates more oxygen than an equivalent stand of trees.

A suspension bridge on the river in China is 250 yard long, 9 foot wide and rests entirely on bamboo cables fastened over the water. It doesn't have a single nail or piece of iron in it.

A typical bamboo has a tensile strength of 28,000 per square inch vs. 23,000 for steel. That makes it one of the strongest materials in the world when it comes to tension structure.

Used in ladders, scaffolding or fencing, bamboo is twice as stable as oak, and harder than walnut and teak.