4 THE BAMBOO GARDEN CHAP. 
are thriving peacefully, accommodating themselves to new and 
altogether strange conditions of existence, proof, to all appear- 
ance, against any treachery which the climate of the Cotswold 
Hills may bring to bear upon them. We need not despair 
of seeing in a few years miniature groves of Bamboos clothed 
in all their marvellous grace, and lacking no native beauty, 
save only at night the myriad darting lamps of the fire-flies, 
by whose light, as the pretty fable runs, Confucius and his 
disciples used to study. 
Up to the present the nomenclature of the Bamboos is 
more or less in a fog, and of the many varieties grown here 
some will doubtless prove to be identical with others sent out 
under a different name. Making allowance, however, for this, 
there will yet be nearly fifty distinct types which may be 
successfully cultivated in all but the most inclement and 
exposed portions of our islands. From the horticultural, in 
contradistinction to the botanical, point of view it may be 
hoped that the determination of the relationship of the 
various species to one another may never be arrived at here ; 
for this can only be attained with accuracy by the inflorescence, 
and when the Bamboo flowers and fruits it dies, or at best is 
so weakened that it takes years to recover its pristine vigour. 
Messrs. Auguste and Charles Riviere, in their treatise on 
Bamboos, observe that a large number of the family, unlike 
the rest of the Graminez, are very miserly in the production 
of their flowers, which they only show at long intervals— 
sometimes of more than thirty years, and they cite Colonel 
Munro and others in support of this assertion. Humboldt 
says that Mutis, during twenty years of botanical work in the 
swampy forests of the Bambusa guadua, never once saw it in 
oO ? 
