CHAP, VI PHYLLOSTACHYS AUREA 115 
it has a true rhizome which in its own home runs freely, and 
is only kept in restraint by our unfriendly climate. It is 
seen to the greatest advantage when planted in large and 
bold masses; and although this is true of all Bamboos, it is 
especially the case with PHYLLOSTACHYS AUREA, which, owing 
to the habit above-mentioned, has, when put out as an in- 
dividual plant by itself, too much of the shape of the birch 
rod of an old-fashioned dame’s school in the kingdom of 
Brobdingnag. One distinguishing feature by which this 
Bamboo may always be recognised is the shortness of the 
internodes at the base of the stem. The first five or six 
nodes of each culm are placed close together. It occasionally 
happens that by some freak one of these internodes will be a 
little longer than the others, but where that is the case, 
the elongation is not continued in the joints immediately 
above it. They revert to the short condition of those below. 
The strong resemblance between the foliage of PHYLLO- 
STACHYS AUREA and that of PHYLLOSTACHYS MITIS has led to 
some confusion between the two, but the above-mentioned 
characteristic formation of the internodes at the base of the 
culm is peculiar to P. AUREA, which again does not show the 
bent stems frequently found in P. miTis. And a further 
evidence of the distinction of the species lies in the fact that 
P. AUREA is, in this country at any rate, far hardier and 
easier of cultivation than P. mITIS; and that the rhizomatous 
character of the rootstock is not so easily seen from the 
position of the culms in the former as in the latter. The 
leaves, too, are far more sharply serrated in P. AUREA than in 
P. mitis. In a young state it is difficult to distinguish the 
two species, but as they grow older each puts forth its 
