158 



BAMBUSA. 



THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



feature is the deep purple colour of the 

 young stems during their first year. 

 This is lost in the two-year-old steins, 

 which change to a greenish yellow or 

 brown. The plants at Shrubland are 

 15 ft. high, and the culms 2| in. in cir- 

 cumference. 



P. Henonis. — To my taste this is the 

 lo\eliesL of all our Bamboos, and it is 

 perfectly hardy, bearing up bravely against 

 our coldest weather. Of all the plants 

 that 1 imported not one has gone amiss, 

 though they were subjected to hardships 

 which proved fetal to a good many of their 

 travelling companions. The slender tall 

 stems are green at first, growing yellower 

 with age, slightly zigzagged. The root- 

 stock runs rather freely, but it is to its 

 habit that this Bamboo owes its surpassing 

 loveliness. The two-year-old culrns, borne 

 down by the weight of their own foliage, 

 bend almost to the earth in graceful curves, 

 forming a pretty groundwork from which 

 the stems of the year spring up, arching 

 and waving their feathery fronds, the 

 delicate green leaves seeming to float in 

 the air. 



P. nigra. — This is perhaps the best 

 known, and from its black stems the most 

 easily recognised of the hardy Bamboos. 

 Varieties of this said to be more free than 

 the species are P. nigro-piindata and P. 

 Boryana. With me the plant has been a 

 little capricious and difficult to establish, 

 but once it has taken hold of the ground 

 no Bamboo seems hardier. The stems 

 are of an olive-green colour during their 

 first year of growth, changing to shining 

 black the following year. They are 

 slightly zigzagged. The leaves, which 

 are from 3 in. to 4^ in. long by three- 

 quarters of an inch broad, are green on the 

 upper surface and glaucous underneath. 



P, Boryana. — One of the handsomest 

 and most vigorous of the hardy Bamboos, 

 very graceful in its habit. Like P. nigra, 

 the stems are green during their fi"st year, 

 but change colour the second year to a 

 dull brown splashed with large deep 

 purple or black blotches. 



P. Castillonis.— A most lovely plant. 

 The foliage is larger than it is in most 

 of the Bamboos, some of the leaves 

 being as much as between 8 in. and 9 

 in. long by nearly 2 in. broad. When 

 they first appear they are striped with 

 bright orange-yellow, which in time 

 fades to a creamy white. As the sheaths 

 of the branchlets are of a very pretty pink, 

 the plant has a tricoloured effect, which 

 is most pleasing ; the branches come in 

 twos and threes. Twenty-four degrees of 

 frost January, 1894, did them no harm. 



P. ruscifolia. — A pretty little Bamboo, 

 described by Munro as P. kumasaca, 

 though the Japanese name is bungozasa. 

 The stems are about 18 in. high, purplish 

 green in colour, with brown sheaths, much' 

 zigzagged and very slender, distinctly 

 channelled from the pressure of the 

 branches, which spring in twos and 

 threes, sometimes in fours, from the 

 nodes. The leaves are from 2 in. to 4 in. 

 in length, and an inch, more or less, in 

 width ; ovate ; soft hairs very conspicuous 

 on the lower surface, but none on the 

 upper surface or on the insertion of the 

 leaves, which are serrated on both edges. 



Arundinaria anceps.— A very beauti- 

 ful Bamboo discovered by Mr. Jordan, 

 superintendent of Regent's Park, in the 

 stock of a dead nursery gardener, whose 

 books being destroyed or lost, it was 

 impossible to trace its origin. It is pro- 

 bably a Chinese species. The culms are 

 brown when ripe ; the leaf-sheaths are 

 hairy, and the petiole of the leaf is yellow. 



A. nobilis. — A grand Bamboo, pro- 

 bably of Chinese origin, growing to a 

 height of 24 ft. at Menabilly, in Corn- 

 wall. It is quite hardy, only losing 

 its leaves in early sunmier when the new 

 ones are ready to appear. The tall stems 

 are yellowish in colour with very dark 

 purplish nodes, of which the lower rim 

 is broadly marked with grey. 



Bambusa disticha. — A pretty little 

 dwarf Bamboo. Stem about 2 ft. high, 

 round, very slightly zigzagged ; branches 

 and leaves distichous ; leaves hairy, 

 especially at the base, and serrated at the 

 edges, about i^ in. long by three-quarters 

 of an inch broad, tapering to a point ; 

 leaf-sheaths hairy ; rhizome inclined to 

 run. A very distinct little plant, most 

 useful for a choice corner in a rock 

 garden. A. B. F.-M. 



BACCHARIS.— Mainly South Ameri- 

 can shrubs belonging to the Groundsel 

 order, one, at least, taking its place among 

 our evergreen shrubs, viz. /lalniiifolia. 

 Other kinds are patagonia, pilularis, and 

 salicina. The cultivated kind is a free- 

 growing, rather dwarf evergreen, easy of 

 culture in ordinary soil, and hardy in the 

 southern and home counties. 



BANKSIA. — Handsome Australian 

 plants, shrubs, and trees, at one time much 

 grown under glass, some of them brilliant 

 in flower. A few kmds are found to thrive 

 in the open air in Devon and Dorset, 

 The kinds so far proved to live in the 

 south of England, at Tresco and Abbots- 

 bury, are grandis, serrafa, and quercifoJia. 

 They should be given warm soil and the 

 ' most favourable position. 



