v ETYMOLOGY—CLASSIFICATION, CHARACTERISTICS 49 
Bambusa palmata, and others, have strong running roots in- 
vading everything, and therefore demand well-isolated posi- 
tions. Others, such as Phyllostachys mitis,and more especially 
Phyllostachys aurea, seem, under the. cramping conditions 
of our soil and climate, to lose their power of spreading. It 
will be better to consider these features when we come to the 
descriptions of the various species ; it may, however, be said 
here that it is not for some years, not indeed until stout growth 
has been made, that root action takes place in earnest. This 
observation does not apply to such sturdy travellers as Arun- 
dinaria Simoni, Arundinaria pygmea, or Arundinaria Veitchii, 
which it is difficult to keep within bounds at any stage 
of their existence; but plants of Arundinaria japonica 
(Métaké), some 11 feet high and a couple of yards or more in 
diameter, which have been established in my garden for. seven 
years, are only just beginning to throw up shoots at some 
distance from the parent stems. 
Some idea of the vigour with which the Bamboos spread in 
their native homes may be formed from the following remark 
of Professor Sargent in his Forest Flora of Japan, p. 7 :— 
In Japan the forest-floor is covered, even high on the mountains 
and in the extreme north, with a continuous, almost impenetrable, 
mass of dwarf Bamboos of several species, which makes travelling in 
the woods, except over long beaten paths and up the beds of streams, 
practically impossible. These Bamboos, which vary in height from 
3 to 6 feet in different parts of the country, make the forest-floor 
monotonous and uninteresting, and prevent the growth of nearly 
all other under-shrubs, except the most vigorous species. Shrubs 
therefore are mostly driven to the borders of roads and other open 
places, or to the banks of streams and lakes, where they can obtain 
sufficient light to enable them to rise above the Bamboos; and it is 
the abundance of the Bamboo, no doubt, which has developed the 
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