90 THE BAMBOO GARDEN CHAP. 
In its native country this is a tall and stately Bamboo ; 
groves of it, 30 feet high, are to be seen near Osaka, the 
Venice of Japan. Inaculm about 12 feet high the nodes 
are about 4 to 5 inches apart, the stem is about seven-eighths 
of an inch in diameter, and the pipe nearly a quarter of an inch 
across. The nodes, which are square and, like the culm, 
rounded at the corners, are very prominent, and have a deep 
purple band on the lower side. The rest of the culm is a 
dark green shading to purple. The branches are from six to 
seven in number. On a dried culm round three sides of the 
square are seen little pits as if branches had been borne on all 
three sides, there are the traces left on two sides by rudi- 
mentary branches in the shape of little spines. The attach- 
ment of the branches is very peculiar, for when the stem is 
dry, or nearly so, they break off almost with a touch, leaving 
a little raised scar sometimes depressed in the centre. The 
texture of the sheath, which is shaded with purple and loosely 
tessellated, is very thin and delicate, and it is much more 
open than in most Bamboos, gaping from the base and leaving 
the greater part of the internode uncovered. The upper 
sheaths overlap the succeeding node. The ligule and limbus 
are exceedingly diminutive, the former being very impercep- 
tibly fringed with delicate hairs. The shape of the bud in 
the axil of the sheath is very peculiar; it is something 
like a flattened Hyacinth bulb in miniature, and is stained 
with red. The leaves are of a fine deep green, about 
8 inches long by 1 inch in width, serrated on both edges. 
The tessellation is very minute and beautifully close. 
A fair-sized leaf shows seven secondary nerves on each 
side of the midrib. The shape is lanceolated, pinched in 
