Imagine, if you will, an expansive stand of 20-foot-tall trees with “shoots” that measure an inch thick. This thicket has no other species of trees within its midst and is contained in a swath of pasture that’s one-quarter mile wide and four miles long. Large patches of lush bamboo, like the one I just described, frequently could be found in the Midwest and South regions of the United States. Sparse populations of bamboo were also present in upper portions of North America but, due to the region’s colder winters, their growth potential was always limited.
You might find that surprising, considering that most people in our industry associate bamboo flooring with foreign manufacturers. Once-abundant fields of bamboo in North America were a neglected resource, however. So-called “Giant Cane” (Arundinaria Gigantea) is unusual in that it is our largest grass species and it also is quite “woody.”