Bambusa bambos (L.) Voss (GRAMINEAE)
Common names
Kannada: Andibidiru, Bidiru, Hebbidiru.
Malayalam: Mulla.
Tamil: Mungil, Periya Mungil, Peru varai mungil.
Description: Large, thorny bamboo with stout root-stock. Culms erect, drooping at the top, up to 30 m tall and up to 17 cm in diam; internodes hollow. Culm-sheaths broad, triangular, up to 30 cm long, striate, orange-yellow when young; blade triangular, acuminate, up to 10 cm long, densely felted with black or dark purplish hairs within. Leaves linear-lanceolate, up to 20 x 2.5 cm, rounded at base, acuminate at apex; leaf-sheath ending in a thick callus with a short bristly auricle; ligule short. Inflorescence an enormous panicle. Spikelets up to 2.5 cm long. Glumes 1-2, ovate-lanceolate, acute or mucronate. There are six separate stamens. The fruit is a caryopsis, elongated and measuring up to 8 millimeters in length, with a beak formed by the base of the style.
Flowering : Flowers gregariously at long intervals, probably every 30 years and dies down.
Distribution: India: Almost throughout except the Himalayas. Sri Lanka.
Uses:
- The grain when available is eaten by the poor. In their overall nutritive value the grains excel both rice and wheat. The tender shoots are cooked and eaten or pickled. Used in construction of houses, ceiling, flooring, frames of mud built houses, scaffolding, tent poles, shafts for tongas, partitions, furniture and for many domestic purposes. Also used for floating heavy timber. Building boards of good strength have been manufactured from their culms using resin and various fillers. The culms yield good quality paper pulp, and are exploited for this purpose. Bleached pulp of chemical purity obtained from the culms is suitable for viscose rayon. The splint culms are woven into mats, hats, baskets, fans etc.
- Bamboo serves various purposes, including crafting ornamental vases, bows, arrows, fish traps, walking sticks, ladders, and more. Additionally, it finds application in creating artificial limbs and splints. The young twigs are eaten by elephants and buffaloes. Root leaf and grain are used for treating wounds, oedema, diseases of vata and pitha, thirst, cough, dyspnoea, wasting diseases, jaundice and anaemia. Leaf antileprotic, febrifuge, bechic, used in haemoptysis; leaf bud and young shoot used in dysmenorrhoea, externally in ulcers; bamboo manna (silicious crystalline substance in the interior of hollow stem) tonic, aphrodisiac, pectoral, stimulant, febrifuge, antidiarrhoeal, carminative, expectorant, antiparalytic, used in jaundice; leaf and bamboo manna emmenagogue.