ARUNDINARIA JAPONICA OR METAKE 71 
description of the plant, cites a curious statement com- 
municated by Signor Fenzi, an Italian horticulturist, to the 
Gardeners’ Chronicle in 1872, to the effect that ARUNDINARIA 
JAPONICA is not a plant to be recommended for cultivation, 
being affected by a curious disease which causes its culms 
always to go into flower instead of growth, etc. This criticism 
is partly borne out by Messrs. Rivicre, who assert that it has 
been in many instances observed in Algeria that this Bamboo, 
in certain cases, has a tendency to dwindle away instead of 
developing itself. If left to itself, say Messrs. Riviére, in an 
uncultivated spot, it ends by reaching the condition of an 
herbaceous plant, its spikelets, accompanied by two leaves, 
being carried upon little stems hardly ten centimetres high. 
In this degenerate condition, the inflorescence constitutes an 
ear or spike, long, slender, compact, bearing long and pendu- 
lous stamens. This is a state of things which I have never 
observed, and I am glad to see that Mr. Bean is, like myself, 
inclined to take up the cudgels for an old friend. He says: 
“There can be no doubt of its value to-day as a hardy 
evergreen.’ With that opinion I entirely agree. Given 
favourable conditions of soil and position, ARUNDINARIA 
JAPONICA grows, with time, into a striking and handsome 
object. I never saw it better shown than in a garden on 
the borders of Epping Forest, where, upon a promontory 
jutting out into a piece of ornamental water, and with a most 
picturesque background, it has quite a tropical appearance. 
The plant was first introduced in 1850 by Von Siebold, the 
eminent naturalist who did so much to make known the 
Flora and Fauna of Japan, in those days a closed country—- 
except to the Dutch, whose factory on the island of Deshima, 
