PHYLLOSTACHYS KUMASASA or VIMINALIS 
A SPECIES as pretty as it is unique in character. Munro 
says: “This is certainly unlike any Bamboo I have seen,” 
and quotes Stendel, who calls it “species singularis” and 
“neculiaris certe formationis et vix dubie distinctum genus.” 
Munro talks of having only seen the upper part of a culm 
6 feet long, which points to a far taller plant than it is with 
me and at Kew, where it is a dwarf not more than from 
18 inches to 2 feet high. A Japanese catalogue gives 3 feet 
as the height which it attains in its own country. Was 
Munro misinformed as to the length of the culm of which his 
specimen was a fragment ? 
The culm is green, channelled on the Hieachas side, 
almost solid, the fistula being so minute as almost to escape 
observation, and very tough. The rather prominent nodes, 
which are of a darker green than the rather pale stem, are 
from 1 inch to nearly 2 inches apart, and the internodes 
are prettily zigzagged. The sheaths, which are richly fringed 
with hairs, are purple, fading at the top, which gives the 
undeveloped culm a rather strange, mottled appearance. The 
ligule is small and also fringed with silky hairs. The limbus 
is infinitesimal and very short-lived. 
The branches are borne in threes and fours and are not 
