From the Seattle Times comes this GREAT article on bamboo:

If Jackie Heinricher’s Chilean feather bamboo hadn’t flowered in her Skagit County garden 10 years ago, we might, this very moment, be snacking on the latest, greatest gourmet craze: crunchy chips made from bamboo shoots.

But flower it did, a once-in-a-century phenomenon. All over the world, from Argentina to Alameda to Anacortes, every clump of Chusquea culeou unfurled fairy-like fans of pointy mauve petals and dancing chartreuse pods. Inside the pods nestled tiny seeds that Heinricher carefully stripped off by hand and germinated with the help of a local tissue-culture lab. It was a horticultural feat that eventually left Heinricher with 10,000 baby bamboos.

Click here for the whole article.