Bamboo-Some Uses and Facts
Canebrake (Arundinaria sp.) and other species 

The slogan on one of our tee shirts reads: You'll Never Go Hungry 
with a Good Cane Pole. Unless You Try to Fish with It! 

This exaggerates a bit, but canebrake is the familiar pole used so 
often over the last few centuries as a quickie fishing pole. In 
fact, growing as it does next to tempting bodies of catfish-filled 
pools and streams, canebrake has probably been responsible for more 
school absences than the flu! 

Bamboos, including canebrake, make up the most useful subfamily 
of the Grass Family. In fact, bamboo is the most useful plant 
known to man. 

The Japanese alone have more than 1,500 uses for this wonderful grass! 

The green, woody, jointed poles of the bamboo form large colonies 
called brakes growing as tall as 50 feet. Grass-like leaves grow 
from jointed branches all along the trunk. 

Bamboo grows faster than any other known plant, as much as an inch 
every 40 minutes! But despite this ability, increasing pressures 
to use land for other purposes has led to a decrease in the number 
of bamboo plantations. This does not bode well for the food, 
building materials, fuel, and paper industries that count heavily 
on this source. 

Canebrake and switchcane are the only native U.S. varieties of 
bamboo and I think canebrake is the best as a food source. 

Harvesting canebrake for food is a bit different from harvesting 
most other bamboos. Pick canebrake shoots up to about 2' tall as 
long as they snap easily. Pick the other bamboos only up to about 
6 tall, just as they begin to break through the ground. Find both 
during the spring. 

Bamboo shoots generally crack the earth shortly before shooting 
out of the ground. 

Happy harvesting.