BAMBOO. 



By Henry G. Hubbard. 



[Note. — The following article, kindly written for this Bulletin by Mr. Henry G. 

 Hubbard, of Crescent City, Fla., is valuable, not only for the facts it contains, but 

 because they are based upon the practical experience of the writer in the cultivation 

 of the plant. 



The tribe Bambusa? (bamboos), the giants of the great grass family of plants, num- 

 bers about 20 genera and 200 species, of which the one Mr. Hubbard describes is at 

 once the most common and the most useful. In addition to the genus Bambusa, the 

 genera Arundinaria, Arundo, Dcndrocalamus, and Guadua are the most important. 

 The canes which grow in swampy places throughout the Southern States from Mis- 

 souri to Florida belong to this tribe, and are its most hardy representatives. Several 

 species of Arundinaria and Arundo can be grown for ornament and for the binding of 

 sand dunes as far north as New York, while the bamboo itself is worthy of extended 

 trial throughout the Gulf region. — B. E. F.] 



A species of arundo closely allied to or identical with Arundo donax 

 is widely distributed in the Southern States, where a variety beautifully 

 variegated with white has long been grown in gardens as an ornamental 

 plant. It attains a height of 12 or 15 feet, but has little economic 

 importance. A similarly variegated variety of the larger European 

 plant was introduced into Florida in 1881. It thrives wonderfully in 

 moist, rich land and sends up canes annually 25 or 30 feet long. The 

 stalks of this reed, however, have little strength and no durability, and 

 are greatly inferior in this and other respects to the native cane of the 

 canebrakes. 



One of the so-called flat-stemmed bamboos was introduced in the city 

 of Savannah, Ga., several years ago. It was obtained from a yailor who 

 brought it from either China or Japan. It may be seen in one of the 

 city parks, where, however, it is grown under adverse circumstances 

 and is kept down by the surrounding shade trees. It is one of those 

 bamboos that require moist land. In the outskirts of the town, in the 

 gardens where it was first introduced, it has taken fall possession, grow- 

 ing as high as the telegraph poles, and making culms 2^ inches in diam- 

 eter at the base. It is, however, a pestiferous plant, and has the bad 

 habit of spreading underground and sending up suckers at a great dis- 

 tance from the parent plant. It is this uncontrollable nature that makes 

 most of the introduced species of bamboo and the native canes very 

 undesirable neighbors in a garden. For this reason care should be 



exercised in transplanting from hothouse collections and importations 



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