66 THE BAMBOO GARDEN 
Here and there an isolated plant, or portion of a plant, has 
borne seed, but without any signs of exhaustion to itself, and 
without its neighbours showing any appearance of following 
its example. Two instances are recorded (there may have 
been many others) in the year 1895—the one in Surrey, 
which I myself saw, the other in Cornwall, 
This being the case, it may be as well to give some 
description of the flower and fruit, which I abridge from 
Messrs. Rivicre’s account of the flowering which took place 
in the gardens of the Luxembourg at Paris in 1876. 
Flowers, hermaphrodite. 
Inflorescence, a simple spike borne at the end of a 
branchlet springing from the node of ramification. The spike 
composed of five, six, seven, or eight spikelets, with a single 
flower, placed distichously. 
The spikelet bearing one flower consists of (1) one glume, 
or chaff-lke inferior bract; (2) one glumella, or small 
superior bract ; (3) two diminutive paleole, or still smaller 
bracts; (4) three pendant stamens; (5) a pistil with a 
sessile stigma, bifid, feathery, and of a whitish colour. 
A little before the complete development of the flower, 
the anther of one of the three stamens is lodged in the 
glume, while the other two are coupled in the glumella. But 
as soon as fecundation is about to take place, the glume and 
glumella separate themselves, the .stamens escape from 
their bondage, while the stigma opens out its divisions to 
receive the pollen. Immediately afterwards the stamens 
lean to the same side, while the glume and glumella close 
upon one another so as to protect the ovary during its 
growth. As for the stamens, whose filaments are thus caught 
