Can lye be extracted from bamboo ash? I know that the best source of lye is hardwood. A brief search tells me that Bamboo is considered a hardwood of the monocotyledon variety. I've done a lot of searching to find this answer, but I can't seem to find if I can use the same process with bamboo ash as I would with, say, Apple ash, to extract lye. 

My question is two-fold:

1) Is it possible to extract lye from bamboo ash?

and if so, 

2) Would this lye be a quality lye, capable of being used to create bar soap?
Yes, it's possible but as pointed out in Bamboo: an overlooked biomass resource? Biomass and Bioenergy, Vol. 19, pages 229-244:


  [bamboo] shares a number of desirable fuel characteristics with certain other bioenergy feedstocks, such as low ash content and alkali index


Potassium oxides are between 33-50% of the ash depending upon species and age of the plant.  

Potassium oxides were between 0.16-0.58% of dry matter. 

Sodium oxides were about a factor of 100 lower.