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11     bamboo reproduction
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The view through a large clump of construction bamboo during the many years of its vegetative growth. Imagine yourself to be a mouse looking up through a field of grass, but in this particular case the individual (and woody) stems are 20 meters tall. Covered with leaves, this is essentially a gigantic field of grass. And if you cut off a woody stem, the underground rhizome (an underground stem that is both a storage organ and the plant itself), simply sends up another stem (shoot). Just like mowing your lawn. The clone lives on and on, in its vegetative phase.
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