Vegetation of Southeast Asia Studies of Forest Types 1963-1965

Thailand is surrounded by the tall, graceful Bambusa blumcnea,
which provides shade or serves as windbreak (Fig. 1037^Its culms
are used for making furniture and household utensils; for building
granaries and bridges; rain gutters and water-conducting pipes.
Coarse strips of the culms also are woven into crates for snipping
pigs, poultry and garden produce; excelcior-like scrapings s«jrve for
stuffing pillows and mattresses, for caulking boats and to strengthen
plaster; coarse fiber is used for cordage and for making sandals;
refined, processed fiber yields collulose for paper and rayon; poles
of various dimensions are used for making ladders, rakes, tool handles,
stakes to support trees, and other articles.
A large number of people in Thailand,and in the adjoining countries,
eke a living from fishing, especially during the offseason between
the planting and harvesting of paddy rice. By virtue of its
versatility, bamboo supplies many of the fisherman's needs. It is
used for making traps, weirs, sluices, poles for hook-and-iine fishing
and for punting, and to stretch nets for drying, also for spears,
floats, trays to dry fish, and baskets to transport them.
(12) SAVANNA
The term 'savanna' is a vernacular term, probably of Carjb origin.
Tropical savannas, such as we find in Southeast Asia, are usually
dominated by grasses, with an. admixture of herbaceous plants, and
with or without widely dispersed shrubs and small trees. Voody species,
however, are seldom absent. Compaied with regions of Tropical America,
with similar climate, there is a comparative scarcity of grassland
fir open wooded savanna jn Southeast Asia.
In Thailand stretches of open flat or rolling grassland savanna
tire found south of the Kra Isthmus in the region of Ranong, on the
western sidn of the central Peninsula (Fig. 108). There the grass
is low, mixed with small herbaceous plants, and occasional tufts of
small shrubs. Some of these grass savannas are dominated by the
widespread 'kha-luang 1 grass (imperata cylindrical). They are apparently
secondary grasslands which have developed after the clearing of
patches of Evergreen or Deciduous forests for shifting agriculture,
followed by repeated annual burning.
Another type is wooded savanna (Fig. 106). This is more widespread
in Thailand than open grass savanna. Stretches of this type
occur in the eastern region, arouivi Surin, Ubon, Fhibun Mangsahan, and
towards the .border of south Laos; in the northeast between Konkaeri,
and Kalasin and n^ar Nakhon Phanom; northward from Konkaen to Udo.n,
as far as Nongkhai in the upper Mekong river; and in the north, in
limited areas between Tak, Thoern and Lampang. Other areas of wooded
savanna ere found in the west on rolling hills around Banpong, Kanchanaburi,
and in the basin of the Khwae Noi and Khvae Yai rivers;
and farther to the northwest between Mae Sariang and Mae Hongson.