210 GIANT BAMBOOS. 



species * catalogued by botanists. These are of all 

 sizes, some of them being of great height, while others 

 are small and reed-like; they are found ascending to 

 great altitudes on mountain ranges, as for example on 

 the Himalayas in the neighbourhood of Darjeeling, in 

 British Sikkim, where we have seen them growing 

 luxuriantly at a height of at least 8000 to 9000 feet 

 above sea-level. The large-growing varieties vary from 

 20 to 100 feet or more in height, f These, however, 

 are all habitants of the hot regions of the tropical zone, 

 and the moment we pass out of them the bamboo 

 becomes dwarfed in size, and generally deteriorated in 

 appearance. 



Some of the finest kinds of bamboos, in fact, are only 

 found growing over a restricted area of the earth's surface, 

 though they would probably do well on damp, rich soils 

 everywhere throughout the torrid zone. Among the large- 

 growing kinds, the common bamboo (Bambusa Vul- 

 gerici] is, however, a cosmopolitan species, found through- 

 out the warmer regions of Asia and America, where 

 it sometimes "attains the height of 100 feet or more, 

 with a diameter of one foot at the base ; " and like all 

 these plants shoots up with such unconceivable rapidity 

 that it " attains its full height, in a few months." 



In the great Brazilian forests bamboos grow to an 

 enormous size; and Mr. Walsh states that he saw 

 " many two feet in circumference, and so tall as to 

 resemble forest trees ; " ** and he mentions his having 

 cut one of the larger varieties about the middle, and 



* Dictionary of Economic Plants, by John Smith, A.L.S., 1882, 

 Article "Bamboos." 

 f Ibid. 

 Ibid. 

 ** Walsh's Notices of the Brazil, 1830, Vol. ii., p. 56. 



