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Tattoo designs - B >> Bamboo

Bamboo Tattoo Meanings - Bamboo is a favourite tattoo design motif for individual seeking to have large parts of their anatomy covered with skin ink. In tattoo scenes which feature creatures like tigers and dragons, bamboo is a popular backdrop, used in a similar fashion to design elements like smoke, fire, clouds and water. Bamboo gives a tattoo an authentically Asian feel, its segmented stalks and long leaves instantly recognizable all around the world.

Bamboo is an extremely hardy plant, capable of flourishing with astonishing vigor and vitality, qualities prized in many cultures.

Bamboo is actually a grass with tall, slim, segmented, cane-like stalks and long, slender, tapering leaves. It is native to Asia, India, and parts of Australia and Africa. The canes possess such great tensile strength that in Asia they're used in scaffolding instead of aluminum or steel. Bamboo is reputed to be the only plant able to withstand a hurricane. From medicine to tools, from food products to construction and landscaping, bamboo has found many important roles in human activities. Music, arts and crafts, and fabrics and toys all benefit from bamboo's unique qualities.

Due to its strength and durability, the bamboo plant has for thousands of years represented these qualities in spiritual teachings. In China, it's not only a symbol of longevity, but together with the plum blossom, the orchid, and the chrysanthemum, represents the four seasons. In Japan, cultivated bamboo forests guard sacred Shinto shrines. Groves of bamboo are likewise planted in many Buddhist temple grounds. In India, bamboo is an emblem of friendship, and in Vietnam it is said to represent the very soul of the people. A creation legend from the Philippine Islands speaks of the first man and woman emerging from split bamboo stems after a battle between Sky and Ocean.

Some species of bamboo -- when conditions are right for sending up new shoots -- grow as fast as two inches per hour. Bamboos flower but rarely, sometimes only once in 60 to 120 years. After flowering, the bamboo dies. One species of bamboo has an even more amazing secret life -- all plants of the same stock (regardless of their geographic location or climate conditions) flower simultaneously. This botanical phenomenon occurs due to a cellular 'alarm clock' signalling each plant to flower at a specific moment.

By the way, don't be fooled by Lucky Bamboo, it's not a true bamboo, but a member of the Lily family.

Get inspired by some really amazing bamboo images and photos in our Bamboo Inspiration Gallery

See also: Flower & Plant Tattoo Index, Japanese Tattoo Index

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Tattoo designs - B >> Bamboo

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