BAMBINO, IL (Ital. for "the Babe"), the name given in art to the image of the infant Jesus in swaddling clothes common in Roman Catholic churches. The most famous is the miracle-working Santissimo Bambino in the church of Ara Coeli at Rome, the festival of which is celebrated on the feast of the Epiphany (January 6).
Fig. 1.—Bambusa arundinacea, an Indian bamboo. 1, Leafy shoot. 2, Branch of inflorescence. 3, Spikelet. 4, Flower.
BAMBOO, the popular name for a tribe of grasses, Bambuseae, which are large, often tree-like, with woody stems. The stems spring from an underground root-stock and are often crowded to form dense clumps; the largest species reach 120 ft. in height. The slender stem is hollow, and, as generally in grasses, has well-marked joints or nodes, at which the cavity is closed by a strong diaphragm. The branches are numerous and in some species spiny; the narrow, often short, leaf-blade is usually jointed at the base and has a short stalk, by which it is attached to the long sheath. The spikelets are usually many-flowered and variously arranged in racemes or panicles. The flower differs from that of the majority of grasses in having usually three lodicules and six stamens. Many species bloom annually, but others only at intervals sometimes of many years, when the individuals of one and the same species are found in bloom over large areas. Thus on the west coast of India the simultaneous blooming of Bambusa arundinacea (fig. 1), one of the largest species, has been observed at intervals of thirty-two years. After ripening of the seed, the leafless flowering culms always die down.
The Bambuseae contain twenty-three genera and occur throughout the tropical zone, but very unevenly distributed; they also extend into the sub-tropical and even into the temperate zone. Tropical Asia is richest in species; in Africa there are very few. In Asia they extend into Japan and to 10,000 ft. or more on the
Himalayas; and in the Andes of South America they reach the snow-line.
The fruit in Bambusa, Arundinaria and other genera resembles the grain generally characteristic of grasses, but in Dendrocalamus and others it is a nut, while rarely, as in Melocanna, it is fleshy and suggests an apple in size and appearance. The uses to which all the parts and products of the bamboo are applied in Oriental countries are almost endless. The soft and succulent shoots, when just beginning to spring, are cut off and served up at table like asparagus. Like that vegetable, also, they are earthed over to keep them longer fit for consumption; and they afford a continuous supply during the whole year, though it is more abundant in autumn. They are also salted and eaten with rice, prepared in the form of pickles or candied and preserved in sugar. As the plant grows older, a species of fluid is secreted in the hollow joints, in which a concrete substance once highly valued in the East for its medicinal qualities, called tabaxir or tabascheer, is gradually developed. This substance, which has been found to be a purely siliceous concretion, is possessed of peculiar optical properties. As a medicinal agent the bamboo is entirely inert, and it has never been received into the European materia medica.
Fig. 2.—Bamboo (Bambusa vulgaris), very much reduced. Grows 20 to 50 ft high.
The grains of the bamboo are available for food, and the Chinese have a proverb that it produces seed more abundantly in years when the rice crop fails, which means, probably, that in times of dearth the natives look more after such a source of food. The Hindus eat it mixed with honey as a delicacy, equal quantities being put into a hollow joint, coated externally with clay, and thus roasted over a fire. The fleshly fruit of Melocanna is baked and eaten. The plant is a native of India, but is sometimes cultivated as in Mauritius. It is, however, the stem of the bamboo which is applied to the greatest variety of uses. Joints of sufficient size form water buckets; smaller ones are used as bottles, and among the Dyaks of Borneo they are employed as cooking vessels. Bamboo is extensively used as a timber wood, and houses are frequently made entirely out of the products of the plant; complete sections of the stem form posts or columns; split up, it serves for floors or rafters; and, interwoven in lattice-work, it is employed for the sides of rooms, admitting light and air. The roof is sometimes of bamboo solely, and when split, which is accomplished with the greatest ease, it can be formed into laths or planks. It is employed in shipping of all kinds; some of the strongest plants are selected for masts of boats of moderate size, and the masts of larger vessels are sometimes formed by the union of several bamboos built up and joined together.