By Anne Raver

MOUNT VERNON, Washington: Bamboo is a versatile, ancient plant that shows up in creation myths as well as in pots on Manhattan terraces.

It comes in clumping varieties that behave themselves and in running “timber” types that spread by rhizomes – great for a grove, but not so good when they are planted as a property screen that escapes into a neighbor’s yard.

But that very vigor is why environmentalists hail bamboo as the new “It” plant for saving the earth.

Bamboo is a workhorse at sequestering carbon dioxide and pumping out oxygen. It is a tough plant that manufactures its own antibacterial compounds and can thrive without pesticides. And its porous fibers make a cloth that breathes and is as soft as silk.

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