Who knows why this plant is that color? Height? Fussiness? It makes sense to the plant somehow; we can only enjoy and enthuse.
This groundcover-bamboo, hardy into Zone 5, relinquishes the outer half-inch edge of its leaves when the weather gets cold. The cells die, the green fades, and the parchment-colored cellulose structure is left behind—while the center of the leaf is kept alive through the Winter.
It's a stunning show both close-up at en masse, especially in mild Winters when, indeed, the center of the leaves remain viable.
In more serious Winters the entire foliage is liable to "parchment out". Not a terrible display, just not as singular. No matter if it's a mild Winter or a nasty one, by Spring the entire colony gets cut right down to the ground. The parchmented leaves don't "recolonize" their dead edge, and it's best to get rid of those stems entirely; the new crop of stems will be plenty profuse. My colony here—at the same client blessed with the tap-dancing stinking hellebores, is about ten years old, and all the stems you see here are indeed just from the previous season's growth.
This bamboo is Sasa veitchii ("sasa VITE-chai"). I don't yet have it planted in my own gardens, silly me. The Winter show is exceptional, so it would be best somewhere I can see it en route to of even from the house during the cold months.
But those beds are (duh) already crammed with other beauties, and this bamboo likes to wander. Perhaps—I know—in a big container, where I can enjoy the foliage show for a while but by, say, January, hustle the pot into the greenhouse. (Sasa isn't hardy enough to survive in a pot through the Winter.) A thought, but a weighty one: Yet one more container to lug into cover for the Winter and out again for the Summer. Sigh. I'll consider it.