188 THE BAMBOO GARDEN CHAP. 
their view is the type of all that is most graceful and most 
poetical in garden form. Moreover, they are essentially 
a practical people, to whom the commercial and utilitarian 
value of the Bamboo calls aloud with the chink of dollars. 
Our European collectors have for many years had free access 
to their gardens, and have thus had before them living 
catalogues of all the daintiest and loveliest species, with the 
result shown by the enumeration which I have given in the 
preceding pages. For these reasons I was inclined to think 
that from those gardens we had not much more to hope for. 
This has already proved to be wrong. The Flora of China 
especially is one of the richest in the world; our botanists 
are only now beginning to examine it by the light of 
western science, and it is dangerous, therefore, to hazard any 
very definite opinion in regard to its capabilities. One of 
our greatest botanists writes to me: “The Flora of North- 
Western China is essentially Himalayan, with a profusion of 
distinct rhododendrons ; why not, then, of hardy Bamboos ?” 
Is it certain, even, that all the species actually in 
cultivation in Great Britain have come under the observation 
of experts? The three species which I have named above 
must have been here for years, yet such has been the con- 
fusion of names that no one suspected their existence until 
a few months ago. A new enthusiasm, however, has sprung 
up, and there is a perfect craze for hardy Bamboos, so 
that it may be hoped that none will in future escape notice. 
The infection, moreover, is spreading in the New World as 
well as in the Old; hardly a week passes without some new 
and unknown correspondent writing to give or ask for 
information. This cannot fail to give a great impetus to 
