The Ever-Green Bamboo Forests...

The Ever-Green Bamboo Forests...

Bamboos are some of the fastest-growing plants in the world, and are of enormous economic and cultural significance in South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, being used for building materials, as a food source, and as a versatile raw product. They have over 5000 different uses, and have aided the human species countless of time over the millenia. Some think they were the original building materials for homes. The bamboo family has more than 1,450 different species, and there are a number of bamboo forests in the world. All of them, as you are about to see, are stunning.

Bamboo is a type of grass, yet when it grows large, it resembles a tree more than anything. There are bamboo forests all around the world, this is a shot of a beautiful bamboo forest in Japan.

Oahu is what the local residents call the path that winds through the bamboo forest.

A photo of the bamboo forest in Kyoto. It's actually rare to get a shot of this path without it being full of people. No surprise there, who wouldn't like a stroll along this beautiful path?

Bamboo, perhaps because it is a type of grass, is one of the fastest growing plants in the world, while some species can grow up to 100 centimeters (39 inches) in just 24 hours.

A bamboo forest in Koali, Hawaii. This beautiful path culminates in a stunning waterfall.

Another bamboo forest in Kyoto, this is the Sagano bamboo forest. Some of the bamboo here range from half a meter (1.5 feet) to a staggering 35 meters (115 feet) tall.

After the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima at the end of the second world war, bamboo was the first plant to come back, bringing back a touch of green.

Go up these stairs and you'll arrive at the 'Ocean of Bamboo', Huangshan, China. This is a beautiful, and very green, bamboo forest.

Acrobats holding a mock duel at a bamboo forest in Indonesia.

A photo from within the biggest bamboo forest in Korea: Jungnokwon.

While some bamboo types do not flower according to a schedule, they usually flower together. Some types of bamboo flower so rarely, that up to 120 years can pass between flowerings.

The green bamboo ocean in China.

One of the most relaxing things about strolling through a bamboo forest is the gentle swaying of the bamboo stalks as the wind gently pushes them around.

Bamboo forests have such intense green colors, that they always seem full of life.

Bamboo has literally thousands of uses by man, including diesel fuel, aphrodisiacs, musical instruments, food, paper, medicine and the list goes on and on...

Humans have been using bamboo for so long, some think it may have been the oldest construction material in history. In South America, for example, evidence was found that bamboo was used to build dwellings up to 9,500 years ago.

On the left is the Minuma bamboo forest in India. On the right is Kodai-Ji, a bamboo forest in Kyoto, Japan.

A mystreious path through the forest in Hawaii.

Pandas feed on bamboo, that includes giant pandas, red pandas, mountain gorillas and even golden bamboo lemurs.

Not all bamboo is green. Because bamboo is a grass, some grow fast and then look like a lawn might look in winter - yellow and dead.

Stunning field of bamboo growing outside Kyoto.

'The eye of the forest' - can you see it?

The sun touching the bamboo forest of Kyoto.