VII FUTURE POSSIBILITIES 189 
collecting; and it is with the view of calling the attention of 
collectors in various parts of the world to the subject that I 
have drawn up a list of those species which appear to be the 
most likely to succeed in this country, and to which the 
numerous expeditions sent out in search of Orchids and other 
rare plants might, in passing, turn their minds with profit. 
I am aware that my list errs greatly on the side of hope- 
fulness ; but a trial, at any rate, will do no harm, even though 
some species should be sentenced to death, others to imprison- 
ment in the temperate house; while every new plant 
flourishing in freedom will be a fresh joy added to our 
gardens,—in every sense a survival of the fittest. Many of 
these, no doubt, may only find a congenial home in the 
warmest nooks of our islands, but some there are which may 
assuredly settle down comfortably, cheek by jowl, with their 
Chinese and Japanese cousins in the ordinary Englsh 
climate. 
I may be forgiven for once more dwelling upon the 
tessellation of the leaf as some evidence of hardihood. For 
this evidence I claim no more value than is afforded by the 
simple fact that no Bamboo without this character has 
proved thoroughly hardy in this country. There are, 
no doubt, tropical Bamboos with tessellated venation which 
we could not grow, and therefore the test is an incomplete 
one. But when we find it combined with a natural habitat 
of great altitude, subject to the influences of frost and snow, 
in plants surrounded by a non-tropical and alpine vegetation, 
we have such good warranty for the hardihood of the species 
that we may with faith attempt to acclimatise it here. 
I append an index taken by continents of those species 
