74 THE BAMBOO GARDEN 
Mr. Gamble’s monograph of the Bambusez of British India, 
from which it is clear that this Arundinaria agrees only in 
its purple-black stems with A. KHastAna (which is closely 
allied to, and indeed hard to distinguish from, A. FALCATA), 
and, moreover, that there is not among the Bambusez of the 
Himalayas any known plant corresponding with it. 
So it became necessary to find a fatherland and a history 
for this unknown waif. At the request of the Director of 
Kew, Messrs. Veitch made a careful search in their books 
and ascertained that their plant was raised from seed received 
in 1889 from Dr. Regel, then Director of the Botanic Garden 
of St. Petersburg. Professor Batalin, the present Director, on 
being written to, very kindly set the question at rest by in- 
forming the authorities at Kew that the seed was collected 
by the Russian traveller, Mr. Potanin, in North Széchuan. 
He has since sent authentic specimens grown under glass in 
the St. Petersburg Botanic Garden from Mr. Potanin’s seed, 
which leave no doubt as to their identity with the (misnamed) 
KHASIANA Hort. Kew. 
The same plant has since been detected in the herbarium 
of Dr. Henry, who found it in Hu-pei. 
As this ARUNDINARIA had not hitherto been described 
(except, as I have pointed out, under a false title) it was also 
necessary to give it a name, and I chose “ NITIDA” as appro- 
priate to its brilliancy and beauty (see Gardeners’ Chronicle, 
xvi, 1895,.p. 186), 
An exceptional interest attaches to the discovery of the 
true home of ARUNDINARIA NITIDA as bearing out the belief 
of the Director of Kew that new additions to our collections 
of hardy Bamboos might be expected from the north-west of 
