Which is the tallest grass in the world?

In Texas there is a grass that grows twice as tall as a tall man. In Florida there is a grass six times as tall as a tall man. But these are not the tallest grasses in the world   far from it. In China they have a grass 120 feet tall   as high as a twelve story building.

The most important plant family is Gramineae, the grasses. Some 5,000 different grasses have been named and classified and this list is not complete. The Gramineae plant family includes the grains and cereals   the wheat and rye, corn and barley,, oats and rice. Sugar cane is a grass.. Then there are countless varieties of velvety shorties that carpet our lawns and meadows.,

There are tough grasses on the arid prairies and scrubby grasses on the harsh tundras. There are lush grasses in the steamy tropics. This is where we find the bamboos, the fastest growing, the strangest and the tallest grasses in the world. Imagine a patch of grass as high as 20 men standing on each others’ heads. Now you know how an ant feels, walking through the velvety blades of grass on the lawn. Mowing a lawn of this tall tall bamboo grass is just about impossible, for when conditions are right it can grow three feet every day.

We have two native bamboos in North America and, as you would expect, these lush and thriving grasses grow in moist, warm regions. The so called switch cane of Maryland, Indiana and Texas is a 12 foot bamboo grass. A 25 foot bamboo grows wild in Virginia and Florida. The long, stiff stems are wrapped in slender leaves that rustle like crisp ribbons in the wind. A thicket of our native bamboo is called a cane brake.

In tropical Asia, Africa, Central and South America there are some 500 different kinds of bamboo. Some varieties are just a few inches tall, others are 20, 30 or 50 feet tall and the giants of the grassy bamboos are 100 to 120 feet tall.

A bamboo plant can sprout up to 100 long, straight stems. Each stem is a stiff and woody tube, notched with round knuckles at regular intervals. The inside is hollow, the surface is smooth and shiny. The papery green leaves glow like slender ribbons from joints of the stem.

In the tropics, the woody bamboo stems are used to make houses, boats and rafts, furniture and fishing poles. The stems are split to make woven mats and rugs and fancy bird cages. The young green sprouts are used as salads and cooked vegetables. In Georgia, the U. S. Department of Agriculture has a farm to test bamboos from many lands with the idea of finding useful types that can be coaxed to grow in our climate.