140 THE BAMBOO GARDEN CHAP. 
of success. The roots are sturdy and vigorous, and every 
year as the plants are better established the culms are 
produced earlier in the season, so that they have more time 
to ripen their wood, and thus gain powers of resistance. 
The canes, the growth of which does not vary in manner 
from those of the other species of the Phyllostachys group, 
are of a deep violet, almost black, colour during the first year 
of their growth. This with the violet sheaths of the branches 
has given the name to the species. But this peculiar colow 
is not persistent. As the cane ripens it changes to a dull, 
dingy yellow or brown, exactly reversing the order of things 
to be observed in PHYLLOSTACHYS NIGRA where the culms, 
green in their first year, ripen into a beautiful glossy black 
in the second. 
The leaves vary greatly in size. I have two before me. 
The one is 7 inches long by nearly 2 inches broad, the other 
is but 2 inches by half an inch. The one has eight secondary 
nerves on each side of the midrib, the other but three. It is 
noteworthy that the larger leaves in all these Bamboos are 
found upon young shoots or upon the ends of the lower 
branches near the ground. The foliage on the tall mature 
stems more rarely shows great differences in size. The leaves 
are lanceolate, ending in a fine point at the top, and in a 
well-pronounced purplish petiole at the base. They are 
sharply serrated more or less on both edges. The leaf 
sheaths, which have a long, rounded, and fringed ligule, 
bear at the insertion of the leaf a cluster of coarse purple 
hairs. In colour the foliage is a dark green on the upper 
face with a beautiful glaucous tint on the lower. The culm 
sheaths are of a purplish brown colour, with a stronely- 
