FRUIT OF MELOCANNA BAMBUSOIDES. 405 
specimens of JZelocanna, to my friend Prof. Hans Molisch of Prague and to Mr. G. F. 
Herbert Smith of the Mineralogical Department of the British Museum for the exami- 
nation of certain crystals found in the fruits, and finally to Mr. L. A. Boodle for 
assistance in several points which I shall have an opportunity of mentioning in this 
paper. 
I. THE SPECIES OF MELOCANNA AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION. 
The genus Melocanna is confined to India. Two species are described and figured by 
Gamble in his ‘Indian Bambusez' as belonging to it, viz. M. bambusoides, Trin., and 
M. humilis, Kurz. i 
Melocanna bambusoides ranges from the Kamrup District on the north side of the 
Khasia Hills to the Attaran District in Tenasserim, inhabiting a belt which lies entirely 
within the zone of heavy rainfall (over 2000 mm. per annum) *, but with a distinct 
dry and rainy season, the latter covering approximately the months from May to October. 
The “locus classicus” of Roxburgh’s Bambusa baccifera, the basis of the species, is 
somewhere in the “ Chittagong Mountains," whence a Mr. Richard Pierard sent “ growing 
plants, seeds, and well-preserved specimens" to Roxburgh, as it seems, in 1801; this, 
at least, is the date given in Roxburgh's * Hortus Bengalensis, p. 25. The locality is not 
further specified, but as Pierard says, in his note to Roxburgh, that the bamboo * grows 
in dry places, chiefly on the sides of hills, where the upper stratum of the soil is sandy," 
I infer that he meant the lower outer ranges, which in part consist of sandstone. 
The second species, M. humilis, was described by S. Kurz from barren specimens and 
must not be confused with M. humilis, Rupr., which is an Amboina plant, figured by 
Rumphius and evidently not a JMelocanna at all. Kurz indicates his M. humilis from 
the mixed forests of Arakan and from the Pazwoondoung Valley, Pegu. It may bea 
Melocanna, but so very little is known that I may well pass it over. 
_ Finally, I wish to point to what seems to be a third species of Melocanna. My attention 
was called to it by a specimen consisting of a leafy twig and the end of a very curious 
stolon. It was collected by C. B. Clarke at Eerung in Muneypoor and numbered 
42188 a. The leaves are very like those of JMelocauna bambusoides, but the stem is 
described on the label as thorny. Mr. C. B. Clarke has kindly supplied me with a note 
on this bamboo, which will, 1 hope, lead to its rediscovery and thorough examination. 
He writes :— When I was at Dacca in 1868, an officer, who had been on survey in the 
East Cachar Hills, showed me a large seed of Melocanna, as big as that depicted by 
Roxburgh. He told me that this bamboo occupied 6000 square miles of country ; that 
it had fruited the last season ; that he stopped his survey six weeks earlier owing to the 
fall of seeds breaking theodolites and. plane tables; that the whole of the old plants had 
died after seeding; that the whole country could be seen covered with seedlings. 
Subsequently, in 1885, I marched from Muney poor to Cachar, across the country reported 
to me by the surveyor in 1868, and was for several days in a uniform, almost pure, 
jungle of Melocanna. The powerful stolons formed a horizontal mass, and I with 
difficulty dug up the end of one, now in the herbarium at Kew. The stems of this 
* Bartholomew, Phys. Atl. vol. iii. pl. 25. 
