Anja Henseler, Building with Bamboo, 1.Bamboo

Building with Bamboo, Anja Henseler 1997

1. Bamboo
Bamboos belong to the Graminae, and form the tribe Bambusae of the subfamily Bambusoideae.
They often have a tree-like habit and can be characterized as having woody, usually hollow cultus, complex rhizome and branch systems, petiolate leaf blades and prominent sheathing organs.
Bamboos with very few exceptions have hollow stems which cannot be bent easily, unless split. (DRANSFIELD & WIDJAJA, 1 995) .
Bamboos have age-old connections with fishing, paper making, gardening, handicrafts, the fine arts and even poetry (ENCYCLOPAEDIA, BRITANNICA, 1967).
Bamboos range in size from dwarfs to giants.
There are very many bamboo species, each with it's own characteristics and purposes.
In table 1 one you can see a list of the number of genera and species, and the places where they are growing.
Table 1: Approximate number of woody bamboo genera and species in the world, (DRANSFIELD & WIDJAJA, 1995)
-Table 1-
There are a lot of interesting things to tell about bamboo.
To illustrate this I added figure 1 (1 a, 1 b and 1 c), which contains a list of "bamboo facts".
-Figure 1- contents: "Bamboo Facts" (why bamboo? http;//www.kauai.net/bambooweb/whybamboo.html) (why bamboo? http://www,kauai.net/bambooweb/whybamboo.html)
(1) The fastest growing woody plant on this planet.
It grows one third faster than the fastest growing tree.
Some species can grow up to 1 metre per day.
One can almost "watch it grow".
This growth pattern makes it easily accessible in a minimal amount of time.
(2) Size ranges from miniatures to towering cultus of 60 metres.
(3) A critical element in the balance of oxygen /carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
(4) Bamboo is the fastest growing canopy for the regreening of degraded areas and generates more oxygen than equivalent stand of trees.
It lowers light intensity and protects against ultraviolet rays and is an atmospheric and soil purifier.
(5) A viable replacement for wood.
Bamboo is one of the strongest building materials.
Bamboo's tensile strength is 28,000 per square inch versus 23,000 for steel.
In the tropics is it possible to plant and grow your own bamboo home.
(6) In a plot 20m x 20m2, in the course of 5 years, two 8m x 8m homes can be constructed from the harvest.
Every year aller that the yield is one additional house per plot.
An enduring natural resource.
Bamboo can be selectively harvested annually,
(7) Bamboo provided the first re-greening in Hiroshima after the atomic blast in 1945.
(8) Thomas Edison successfully used a carbonised bamboo filament in his first experiment with the light bulb.
(9) Versatile with a short growth cycle.
(10) There are over 1000 species of bamboo on the earth.
The diversity makes bam- boo adaptable to many environments.
(11) It can be harvested in 3-5 years versus 10-20 years for most softwoods.
(12) Bamboo tolerates extremes of precipitation, from 30-250 inches of annual rainfall.
(13) A critical element of the economy.
Bamboo and its related industries already provide income, food and housing to over 2.2 billion people worldwide.
There is a 3-5 year return on investment for a new bamboo plantation versus 8-10 years for rattan.
Governments such as India, China and Burma with 19,800,000 hectares of bamboo reserves collectively, have begun to focus attention on the economic factors of bamboo production.
(14) An essential structural material in earthquake architecture.
In Limon, Costa Rica, only the bamboo houses from the National Bamboo Project stood after their violent earthquake in 1992.
Flexible and lightweight bamboo enables structures to "dance" in earthquakes.
(15) A renewable resource for agroforestry products.
Bamboo is a high-yield renewable natural resource:
Ply bamboo is now being used for wall panelling, floor tiles; bamboo pulp, for paper making, briquettes for fuel, raw material for housing construction, and rebar for reinforced concrete beams.
(16) A soil conservation tool.
Bamboo is exquisite component of landscape design.
It's anti-erosion properties create an effective watershed, stitching the soil together along fragile river banks, deforested areas, and in places prone to earthquakes and mud slides,
The sum of stem flow rate and canopy intercept of bamboo is 25% which means that bamboo greatly reduces rain run-off, preventing massive soil erosion.
(17) An ancient medicine.
Bamboo has for centuries been used in Ayurveda and Chinese acupuncture.
The powdered hardened secretion from bamboo is used internally to treat asthma, coughs and can be used a an aphrodisiac.
In China, ingredients from the root of the black bamboo help treat kidney disease.
Roots and leaves have also been used to treat venereal disease and cancer.
Sap is said to reduce fever and ash will cure prickly heat.
Current research point to bamboo's potential in a number of medicinal uses.
Integrally involved in culture and the arts.
(18) Bamboo is a mystical plant as a symbol of strength, flexibility, tenacity, endurance and compromise.
Throughout Asia, bamboo has for centuries been integral to religions ceremonies, art, music and daily life.
It is the paper, the brush and the inspiration of poems and paintings.
Among the earliest historical records, 2nd century BC were written on green bamboo strips strung together in a bundle with silk thread.
Instruments made of bamboo create unique resonance.
(19) A food source:
Bamboo shoots provide nutrition for million of people worldwide.
In Japan, the antioxidant properties of pulverized bamboo bark prevents bacterial growth and its used a natural food preservative.
Bamboo "litter" make fodder for animals and food for fish.
Taiwan alone consumes 80,000 tons of bamboo shoots annually constituting at $50 million industry.
(20) A landscape design element.
Bamboo is an exquisite component of landscape design.
For the human environment, bamboo provides shade, wind break, acoustical barriers and aesthetic beauty.

Economic Botany 1997, Building with Bamboo, Anja Henseler

Economic Botany 1997, Building with Bamboo, Anja Henseler

The picture on the cover is a bamboo bridge. The source and the location are unknown.

Maybe someone knows?

chapter
1. Bamboo
2. uses of bamboo
3. advantages of bamboo as a building material
4. bamboo in the future
5. appendix 1: List of things which can be made out of bamboo
6. Literature
7. internet pages

Economic Botany 2003

I am looking for the papers of Economic Botany Symposium Participants in 2003.

qryEconomicBotany

Title	author(s)
Ancient techniques of linen production of flax (Linum usitatissimum)	Marijke Langeveld, Renee Ruhaak
Aspects of physical properties and production of cork oak	Roald Goorman
Cannabis in Practice :History and Medicinal Values of Marijuana	Liliani Suhartono, Fransisca M. Poerba
Chamomile: a cure for (almost) everything	Madeleine Korthof , Cora Markensteijn
Coffee & Conservation	Rosario Franco
Economic value and Conservation Status of Agarwood	Khou Eang Hourt
Food for the gods: Theobroma cacao	Erasmia Gkioka, Yin Liu
LOTUS (Nelumbo nucifera)	Boon Chuan Ho, HongTao Zhang
Rubber Trees Hevea brasiliensis	Hoang Van Sam
The true cardamom: Elettaria cardamomum Maton (Zingiberaceae)	Kanchana Pruesapan
Transgenic Cotton (Gossypium spp.); The Production Improvement	Eka Aditya Putri, Iskandar
Use of bamboo in Asia	Khamseng Nanthavong

23 years of Economic Botany in Leiden

Economic Botany 1996 / 1997

I am looking for all the other participants from the Economic Botany Course in 1996 and 1997

Title	author(s)
Building with Bamboo	Anja Henseler
Ebony and Ivory	Roos Buitenhuis
The taste of chocolate	Anja Henseler

23 years of Economic Botany in Leiden

23 years of Economic Botany in Leiden

This is a project on creating an overview of all the subjects and plants and their products which were discussed in the Economic Botany Symposia in Leiden, from 1995 until 2018

23 years of input by many students is a lot of information. Since the whole is more than the sum of the parts it would be a good thing if all this knowledge is combined together.I would like to make an overview of all the subjects and plants which were discussed in the Economic Botany Symposia in Leiden.

qryEconomicBotanyYears

jaar
Economic Botany 1996
Economic Botany 1997
Economic Botany 1998
Economic Botany 1999
Economic Botany 2000
Economic Botany 2001
Economic Botany 2002
Economic Botany 2003
Economic Botany 2004
Economic Botany 2005
Economic Botany 2006
Economic Botany 2007
Economic Botany 2008
Economic Botany 2009
Economic Botany 2010
Economic Botany 2011
Economic Botany 2012
Economic Botany 2013
Economic Botany 2014
Economic Botany 2015
Economic Botany 2016
Economic Botany 2017
Economic Botany 2018

Climate Confusion?

In Holland (Leiden) daffodils flower early in spring. But in 2015 they showed up at the second day of Christmas.

Emile van Aelst, foto reporter, took some nice pictures of these early birds.

A link to his blog:
http://leidseglibber.punt.nl/content/2015/12/Het-was-een-drie-seizoenen-kerst-behalve-winter

Citrus Reading list

'Good' and 'bad' bacteria in the fight against citrus greening disease