--- title: China's plants: bamboo, ginkgo, lotus, tea and rice paddies — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «China's plants: bamboo, ginkgo, lotus, tea and rice paddies», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Bamboo is a giant grass, and some kinds grow close to a metre in a single day: if you sat beside a shoot with --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / China's plants: bamboo, ginkgo, lotus,… # China's plants: bamboo, ginkgo, lotus, tea and rice paddies Lesson 380 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 20 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/0/) — Bamboo is a giant grass, and some kinds grow close to a metre in a single day: if you sat beside a shoot with a ruler, you could almost watch it stretch. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/1/) — Its hollow stems with solid joints are strong and light, so Hong Kong builders still tie bamboo poles into scaffolding round skyscrapers. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/3/) — It is so tough that ginkgos near the Hiroshima bomb sprouted again from their roots, kept safe under the soil. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/4/) — Pour water on a lotus leaf and it rolls off in silver balls, carrying the dirt with it, because the leaf is covered in tiny waxy bumps. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/5/) — A lotus seed about 1,300 years old was even grown into a plant. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/6/) — All real tea, green or black, comes from one plant, and rice grows in flooded fields that drown weeds. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/7/) — On mountains in Yunnan people carved rice terraces like giant steps, and in Zhejiang farmers keep fish among the rice. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/8/) — Bamboo is a giant grass; some kinds grow close to a metre in a day, and a shoot comes out as thick as it will ever be and just stretches. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/9/) — Bamboo stems are hollow with solid joints, which makes them strong and light, and bamboo bends without breaking and grows back quickly. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/10/) — Some bamboos flower only once in about 60 to 120 years, all plants of one kind flowering at the same time and then dying; in the 1970s and 1980s mass flowering in China left giant pandas short of food. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/11/) — Builders in Hong Kong still use bamboo scaffolding tied with plastic strips, though more and more metal scaffolding is used there too. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/12/) — The ginkgo is a living fossil, its family going back about 200 million years, and it has no close living relatives; its name biloba means two lobes, after the split leaf. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/13/) — Several ginkgo trees about one to two kilometres from the Hiroshima atomic bomb sprouted again from their roots and are still alive and protected as symbols of hope. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/14/) — Ginkgos are tough against pollution, so many cities plant them on streets. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/15/) — Ginkgo seeds have a fleshy coat that smells like sick or rancid butter because of an acid in it; only female trees make seeds, so many cities plant only male trees, and the inside nut is cooked and eaten in China in small amounts. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/16/) — A lotus leaf has tiny bumps covered in wax, so water rolls off taking dirt with it; this lotus effect was copied for self-cleaning paint and glass, and in Buddhism the lotus stands for something pure rising from mud. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/17/) — A lotus seed about 1,300 years old from a dry lake bed in China was grown into a plant, thanks to its hard waterproof seed coat, and lotus flowers can warm themselves to about 30 to 35 degrees to attract insects. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/18/) — All real tea, green, black, white and oolong, comes from one plant, Camellia sinensis; the difference is how the leaves are dried, rolled and left to darken in air. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/20/) — Rice can grow in flooded fields because its stems have air channels carrying air to the roots, and the water drowns many weeds; the Hani people in Yunnan built rice terraces up whole mountains over about 1,300 years. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/380-china-s-plants-bamboo-ginkgo-lotus-tea-and-rice-paddies/21/) — In Zhejiang farmers have kept fish in their rice fields for over 1,200 years; the fish eat insects and weeds and their droppings feed the rice, and it is protected as a world farming heritage. - ← previous: [China's great rivers: the finless porpoise, the lost baiji, Chinese alligators and sturgeon](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/379-china-s-great-rivers-the-finless-porpoise-the-lost-baiji-chinese-alligators-and-sturgeon/) - next →: [Silkworms and goldfish: two animals China changed](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/381-silkworms-and-goldfish-two-animals-china-changed/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)