BAMBUSA LAYDEKERI 
A SEMI-DWARF Bamboo, not, perhaps, one of the most attractive 
of the family, but certainly peculiar enough to deserve a place 
in a collection. 
The culms are about 5 feet high, but the plant gives 
promise of growing perhaps to twice that height. They are 
round, green in colour, and stained with purple, about half 
an inch in circumference. The piping is very small. The 
nodes, which are prominent, are about 3 to 4 inches apart. 
The branches, which on the lower nodes are borne singly, in 
pairs, or in threes, are almost verticillate on the upper ones, 
and, being long in proportion to the size of the plant, give it 
a very characteristic appearance. The sheaths have a very 
small ligule, fringed with delicate hairs which fall off quickly, 
and an equally small limbus. The largest leaves are about 
6 inches long by three-eighths of an inch in breadth ; they taper 
to a very fine point at the top, and have a well-defined petiole 
at the base. The colour is a dark green, with a rather shabby 
and unsatisfactory mottled variegation of a paler colour. The 
secondary nerves are from three to five on either side of the 
midrib. The leaves are tessellated, and more serrated on one 
edge than on the other. The rhizome is very rampant. 
Not a plant to be recommended for those who desire to 
confine themselves to cultivating a few species. 
