vy ETYMOLOGY—CLASSIFICATION, CHARACTERISTICS 51 
The underground growth of the Bamboo may be well 
understood by examining one of the flexible Wang-hai canes 
sold by whip and stick makers. These canes are indeed made 
of the rhizomes or creeping rootstocks of Phyllostachys (prob- 
ably P. nigra). In one now before me the knots are from 1 
inch to 2 inches apart ; the internodes are fistulous, though the 
pipe is very narrow, only one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter. 
The pipe is, of course, sealed by the septum at each node. 
All round the knots are the scars left by cutting away the 
verticillated rootlets, and on each knot, placed alternately, is 
a larger scar marking the place once occupied by the stem- 
bud. From this scar there runs along the internode an 
indented channel or groove, which becomes gradually 
shallower until it dies away in the next knot. The inter- 
node is deeply depressed in the centre." 
The birth of the bud is the point upon which the chief 
interest is concentrated. As has been shown above, it springs 
from a node of the creeping rootstock. It first appears as a 
small hard cone safely encased in an armour of protecting 
sheaths. When vegetation begins to take place it softens and 
swells until it has grown far larger in bulk than the under- 
ground stem which bears it. As it grows it is drawn up 
telescope-wise until two or three tiny green blades, sometimes 
brown, sometimes yellowish or striped, are seen piercing the 
surface of the soil. Almost at the same time roots begin to 
strike downwards from the base of the rising cane and a new 
plant asserts its independence. 
Watch a plant of Phyllostachys mitis. Slowly, very 
1 The underground stem of an Arundinaria, which presents certain 
variations from that of Phyllostachys, will be found described under 
Arundinaria Simoni, p. 63. 
