402 DR. OTTO STAPF ON THE 
communication by W. Theobald, of the Geological Survey of India, who had observed 
the plant in Arakan, and writes “ that the true seed inside the fleshy pericarp, about the 
size and shape of a small betel nut, is very pleasant eating, and not at all austere, though 
without much flavour. The natives declare the whole fruit is edible after baking” *. 
Munro, like Trinius, could not resist the temptation to speculate on the morphology of the 
fruit he knew only from a picture and a description, but which must have appeared to 
him very anomalous indeed. In speaking of the *'berry-bearing Bamboos" (among 
which he counted, by the way, also genera which have no baccate fruit) he says, Trans. 
Linn. Soc. xxvi. (1868) pp. 4-5:—* They are all extremely interesting from their 
peculiar fruit. The pistil generally appears to be contained in an envelope somewhat 
analogous to the sac, or utricle, or perigynium, which contains the seed of Carex. In the 
young state this is so closely attached to the style that it is almost impossible to separate 
it; in advancing to maturity it increases in various ways. In Melocanna bambusoides 
it becomes very fleshy, and the fruit attains the size of a largish pear." Munro's 
hypothesis, which is practically a repetition and extension of Trinius's explanation, was 
disposed of by S. Kurz, who had had an opportunity of studying the fruit of the ** berry- 
bearing Bamboos” more closely. He writes in the * Indian Forester,’ i. p. 266, referring 
to Munro's theory, * But this view, on a more careful examination, has turned out to be 
unfounded, for this supposed perigynium is virtually nothing else but the indurated outer 
wall of the ovary (pericarp), while the inner stratum of looser cells becomes detached from 
the outer wall and remains as a spongy mass round the true seed." Speaking in another 
place (Z. c.) especially of Melocanna bambusoides, or, as he calls it, Melocanna baccifera, 
he says:—“ Still more interesting are the fleshy fruits of Melocanna baccifera, which attain 
4 inches by 3, and besides terminate into a fleshy beak about 2 inches long, so that the 
whole length amounts to 5 inches! | Here the seed is comparatively small, while it is the 
fleshy pericarp whieh makes the fruitso bulky. "These also germinate while still growing 
on the plant, and Mr. W. L. F. Robinson of Rungpore thus describes the germination : 
* A good watch was kept on those fruits on the trees, and the result is this, as they get ripe, 
out of the big end, by which they hang from the tree, springs a young bamboo leaf and 
also a bunch of roots; when the young shoot is some 6 in. long, the whole thing drops 
off the tree, and apparently plants itself in the ground by the roots. It seems a queer 
thing that the bamboo should reproduce itself on the tree without going to the earth 
first.'" Unfortunately, Kurz stopped short of examining the seed, and it does not seem 
to have struck him at all, that the structure of the seed itself was at least as singular 
as that of the pericarp. Gamble has reproduced (* Indian Bambusez,” in Ann. Bot. Gard. 
Calcutta, vii. tab. 105. fig. 9) a erude figure of a fruit in longitudinal section from a 
drawing by Kurz, preserved in the Calcutta collection. It is evidently a tangential 
section, passing through the seed near its periphery, and therefore showing a central cavity 
* Theobald published later on and independently some further observations on this bamboo in the second edition 
of Mason's t Burmah, ii. p. 101 (1883). Here he says of ** Melocanna ( Bambusa) baccifera, Roxburgh”: “An arboreal 
bamboo, 50 to 70 feet high. Leaves quite glabrous. Caryopsis ovate, the size of a guava or small pear. This is, 
: X think, the Bamboo I found covering lurge areas in the Arakan Range. When I observed it, the fruit was formed 
| and pretty closely resembled a green guava, and internally was harder than a potato.” 
