This well-illustrated book introduces the bamboos of Southeast Asia, a region well known for its incredible range of bamboo utilization and diversity. The author, a bamboo specialist in Malaysia, discusses the salient aspects of bamboo structure, biology and conservation and provides brief perspectives into the sometimes difficult tasks of bamboo classification and identification.
Bamboos are notoriously difficult for botanists to study because of the rarity of flowering material in many cases and the incomplete state of earlier reference collections on which many species names have been based. Field studies into their variation and of their basic biological attributes have also been scarce. Yet they hold immense fascination because they are such a useful group of plants that are linked to both traditional life and modern innovative use.
Ever wondered where to get a not-too-long, yet adequate introduction to what bamboos are? Here is an inexpensive book that gives just that, plus an insider’s perspective of the way bamboos are special in Southeast Asia.