Few people realise that a significant proportion of Chinese and Asian medicines are extracted from bamboo. Bamboo assumes, for most Asian countries, a spiritual and ritualistic value that goes back thousands of years, aside from being a major source of food and building material. It is an essential ingredient in many cultural and religious ceremonies, whether as bamboo implements such as the Japanese tea whisk, the Shakuhachi flute, or the Eloo flute, or a sacred species such as Bali's Tiying Papah (Gigantochloa nigrociliata), or Kyoto's sacred grove of Phyllostachys bambusoides castilloni.
Remember also that if bamboo suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth, about 10% of the people of Asia would be homeless and we would need to replace the approximately two million tonnes of edible bamboo shoots eaten every year!
Very few Australians know that there are at least three, and probably five, indigenous Australian bamboos, including the beautiful, robust Bambusa arnhemica with its strong 10cm diameter culms and showers of fine light green leaves, used for 4,000 years by Arnhemland Aborigines for didgeridoo making.
Recent research has identified the fact that bamboo leaves are very high in anti oxidants, aside from being about 20% crude protein. The shoots are high in vitimin B complex and C5, and many other essential building block ingredients, whilst being low in carbohydrate and protein, an ideal food for diet conscious people.