ARUNDINARIA JAPONICA or METAKE 
A TALL and handsome plant, generally grown in gardens 
under the name of BAamBusA M&TaKE. The word METAKE, or, 
more correctly, Mipak#, means in J apanese “ female Bamboo,” 
but there is no scientific reason for using the word “female” 
in connection with this species, any more than there is for 
calling the DENDROCALAMUS sTRICTUS of India the “male” 
Bamboo. 
The culms, which are round and green, grow to a height 
of 10 to 11 feet, with a circumference of half an inch to 2 
inches. They are straight and slightly flattened at the top. 
When the branches of the second year make their appearance 
the stems are slightly arched by the weight of the foliage. 
The internodes are from 6 to 8 inches long, the pipe about 
an eighth of an inch in diameter. The sheaths, on which a 
roughness caused by minute bristles is distinctly perceptible, 
reach to about a distance of an inch from the next internode 
to that from which they spring, and on the upper part of the 
stem overlap it. They wither very early and are very persist- 
ent, so that the culm for the greater part of its length has the 
appearance of being completely encased by them. The ligule 
is about an eighth of an inch deep, slightly convex or flat on 
the upper edge, deeply concave on the lower. The limbus is 
