CHAP. VI ARUNDINARIA NOBILIS 179 
It will be remembered that between fifty and sixty years 
ago, the date of this importation, the East India Company 
had still practically a monopoly of trade with China, and it 
was their officials who carried on relations with that country 
until some years later, 1842, when the opium war took place. 
I look upon Mr. Rashleigh’s letter, therefore, as strong 
corroborative evidence in favour of my supposition. 
Regarding it then as a hitherto undescribed species, I 
have named this Bamboo ARUNDINARIA NOBILIS, from its 
great stature and imposing appearance. At Menabilly it is 
growing in clumps 24 feet high: my far younger specimens 
promise to grow with great luxuriance. 
The culms are tall, round, slender, and straight, with a 
cavity large in proportion to the girth; the internodes are 
about 7 inches apart. The nodes are not prominent, but very 
conspicuous from their purple-brown colour in contrast with 
a yellowish stem; the lower rim of the knot is broadly 
marked with gray. The culm sheaths are much longer than 
the internodes, which they overlap ; they are rather rough in 
texture, and show a few cross veinlets; the ligule is small 
and much divided at the top into a sort of fringe (though 
there are no hairs), and the recurved limbus is short, narrow, 
and very perishable. At each node are a great number of 
branchlets, giving the plant a verticillate appearance. The 
leaf sheaths, purple in colour, have a very small ligule ; there 
are no hairs at the insertion of the leaf. The leaves are linear- 
lanceolate, from 2 to 3 inches long by rather more than a 
quarter or nearly half an inch broad; they taper to a point, and 
end at the base in a dark purple petiole. The serration of the 
edges is very slight indeed. The leaves are striate, having no 
