6 THE BAMBOO GARDEN CHAP. 
same thing had happened forty years previously. In 1859, 
according to Spilsbury, all the Bamboos between Jubbulpore 
and Mundlah died soon after flowering. Similar annihila- 
tions of whole forests of Bamboos are noted in the case of 
Melocanna bambusoides, which disappeared after flowering 
throughout Tipperah, at Runipore, Arraca, and Chittagong, 
causing a great inconvenience and loss in Tipperah through 
the want of Bamboos for building. All the famous botanists 
—Humboldt, Bonpland, Roxburgh, Mutis, Spence, Wallich, 
Spilsbury, Gray, Hooker, Brandis, Bory de St. Vincent, 
Auguste St. Hilaire, and others who have travelled through 
the Bamboo forests—are agreed in confirming the facts given 
above as to the simultaneous flowering of the species, the 
death of the plants after flowering or seeding, and the rare 
recurrence of the flowering period in most species, a fact 
which sufficiently explains the uncertainty which surrounds 
the nomenclature of the Bamboos which are now cultivated 
in Europe. 
On the other hand, as against these observations, Dr. 
Anderson, superintendent of the Botanic Gardens at Calcutta, 
reports that in 1857 and 1858 many Bamboos flowered and 
seeded near Calcutta, when, contrary to expectation, there 
was no general mortality among the plants. So far as he 
was able to ascertain, only the culms which had flowered 
perished, and were replaced by young shoots which came 
from the roots ; but before flowering and seeding, the foliage 
of the canes almost entirely disappeared. He further states 
that in 1861, when Bambusa gigantea flowered for the first 
time for thirty years, the plants, though weakened, lived. 
Having dealt with the suicidal mystery of the flower of 
