Bamboo

The latest from Lives of the Trees by Diana Wells:

• "Bamboo is evergreen and very pliant, so it bends rather than breaking in winter storms.  This was considered by the Chinese to be exemplary of true gentlemanly behavior."
• "a group of third-century Chinese poets called themselves the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove.  One of them took care to be accompanied always by his servant carrying a shovel, so if he happened to die suddenly, he could be buried at once -- in the bamboo grove.