Bambusa, HEXANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 191 
1. B. arundinacea. Corom. pl. 1. N. 79. 
Spikes half verticelled; calyces about four-flowered, half 
of which are male ; nectaries three-leaved. 
Arundo bambos Linn. sp. pl. 120. 
Ily, Rheed. Mal. 1. t, 16. 
Beng. Bans. 
Teling. Mulkas, Vedroo. 
Tam. Mungil, vel Munkil. 
It delights in a rich, moist soil, such as the banks of 
rivulets, lakes, &c. among the mountains. 
Stems, I fear to call them culms, numerous, from ten 
to a hundred from the same root, for eighteen or twen-— 
ty feet straight, then bending gently to one side, pip- 
ed, jointed, undivided, but with innumerable, very ra- 
mous, alternate, winding, bifarious, spreading branches. 
Thorns double, or triple, alternate, on the joints of the . 
branches and branchlets ; when double, a branchlet oc-. 
cupies the centre ; when triple the largest thorn stands 
there ; they are remarkably strong, sharp, and somewhat 
Tecurved ; sometimes they are wanting, particularly in 
tich moist soils. Leaves sheathing, bifarious short-petioled, 
linear-lanceolate, the upper side and margins backwardly 
hispid, broad at the base, fine-pointed, from two to six 
inches long, and half or three quarters of an inch broad ; 
on the rich moist soil on the banks of the Ganges they 
are from two to four inches broad, and about a foot long. — 
Sheaths somewhat downy with a few short, bent filaments 
on each side of the mouth. 
Inflorescence. When in flower the tree is Sinai a 
titute of leaves, and as the extremity of every ramifica- 
tion is covered with flowers, the whole tree seems one 
entire, immense panicle, composed of innumerable, some- ~ 
what verticelled spikes, each verticil is composed of se-— 
veral, distichous, oblong, pointed, sessile, rigid paren 2 
Such as those of ELEuSINE, Poa, &c. ge 
Common calyx, calycled, from two to sixllowered, 
