cHAP.vI BAMBUSA TESSELLATA OR RAGAMOWSKI 83 
The persistent sheaths, which soon wither to a dull straw 
colour, have-a few rare cross veins and are therefore partially 
tessellated, being fringed on the lower part of their edges 
with very soft brown hairs, and are downy where they are 
covered by the successive wraps of the lower sheaths. The 
ligule and the limbus vary much in size. The former is 
arched at the top, and furnished at the sides with two or 
three coarse hairs ; the latter is very narrow, sometimes quite 
short, sometimes over 2 inches in length. Like the sheath, it 
is imperfectly and capriciously tessellated. 
It will be seen by the above description that every 
device is adopted by Nature to ward off the arch-enemy, 
damp. 
The node gives birth to one solitary branch. I once 
only found twins springing from one and the same 
node. 
The leaves are 18 inches and more long by rather over 
4 inches wide, tapering beautifully to a fine point. The upper 
surface is a bright and shining green, the under surface 
glaucous. The midrib, on one side of which Munro notices a 
tomentose line, is broad and prominent, a yellowish white in 
colour, and on either side are sometimes as many as from 
fifteen to eighteen secondary nerves from one-eighth to one- 
sixteenth of an inch apart. At the base the midrib ends in a 
strong petiole slightly stained with purple. The edges of the 
leaves are sharply serrated. Munro describes the leaf from 
his dried specimen as glabrous, but, in the living plant, the 
lens shows a minute covering of silvery hairs, especially on 
the lower surface to which they give its glaucous colour. 
In the mature plant the foliage arches over, borne down 
