A pine tree may need two decades to mature. The versatile grass also has found its way into China's extensive herbal medicinal chest. Doctors use the rhizome of the black bamboo, mixed with other plants, to treat kidney ailments, and they prescribe the plant's secretion, called tabasheer, for coughs and asthma. Tabasheer also serves as a cooling tonic and even an aphrodisiac in Indian, Chinese, and other Asian cultures. Chinese consider bamboo shoots a delicacy, in part because of the crispness of even the tenderest of shoots.
Farmers walk barefoot on the ground to feel for the hard sprouts.
To grow softer sprouts, they place a mound of earth on top of the emerging plant so it never encounters light. As desirable as the heart of an artichoke to Westerners, the plant's innermost growing tip is one of the delicacies often reserved for the Chinese market.