180 THE BAMBOO GARDEN CHAP. VI 
cross veinlets, but a number of pellucid dots. There are 
from three to four secondary nerves on each side of the 
midrib. The surface of the leaf, which is very thin and 
papery, is a bright green with the purple hue of the petiole 
continued along the edge, the line of colour being broad at 
first, and gradually narrowing till it fades away near the point. 
The lower face equally shows this purple edging, but is shghtly 
more glaucous than the surface. The roots are czespitous. 
Although this Bamboo cannot be called entirely hardy, 
still it is more so than either ARUNDINARIA FALCATA or 
THAMNOCALAMUS FALCONERI, the only other two Bamboos 
with striated leaves which are grown in our gardens. In 
ordinary winters the culms do not die, though the leaves are 
shed, but on the contrary in the spring new branches are 
formed in great profusion. Eight degrees of frost have not 
sufficed to strip the leaves. But a prolonged winter of 
intense severity like that of 1895 kills the culms to the 
ground without, however, injuring the roots. In Cornwall the 
old leaves do not fall until the early summer, when the new 
ones are ready to come out. In the Midlands, then, we may 
regard ARUNDINARIA NOBILIS as a deciduous Bamboo, and to 
that extent hardy. Its gigantic stature, beauty of colouring, 
and elegance of form give it an ornamental value as to which 
there cannot be two opinions. 
It is, of course, a difficult plant to obtain, for where it does 
exist it is muddled up under wrong names with species to 
which it does not belong. The expert must seek for it pain- 
fully, and when he does find it, probably it will be under the 
name of ARUNDINARIA FALCATA, or ARUNDINARIA KHASIANA. 
It was under the latter title that it came into my hands. 
