



BAMBOOS AS GRASSES. 211 



" found it fifteen yards long, where it was not quite 

 so thick as his wrist, so that the whole plant must 

 have been 90 feet, tapering-, and polished the whole 

 way with exquisite finish. "* 



It is probable that in the whole field of tropical 

 vegetation Nature furnishes us with no more attractive 

 or picturesque object than a clump or forest of these 

 g-igantic grasses because grasses they distinctly are, 

 and as such we should like the reader to regard 

 them. 



If we examine the flower stem of one of our strong 

 growing meadow grasses, we shall find that in its 

 form and structure, it closely resembles that of the 

 bamboo in all essential respects: the bamboo being 

 merely as it were a mammoth reproduction of the 

 other, while both plants mature their stalks in something 

 like the same time. 



The young shoots of the bamboo which at first, by 

 the bye, look somewhat like a species of giant 

 asparagus are many of them edible, and form a very- 

 good vegetable, much used by natives of some tropical 

 countries. These shoots generally first begin to appear 

 soon after the commencement of the rains, and grow 

 so rapidly that they attain their full height by the end 

 of the summer, just like ordinary grass. 



Mr. Robert Fortune, formerly botanical collector to 

 the Horticultural Society of London, and the H.E.LCo., 

 for instance, states with regard to the "Mow-chok," 

 or great Chinese Bamboo, that "he found a healthy 

 plant grew two feet, or two and a half feet, in the 

 twenty-four hours, and most quickly during the night." f 



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



7 Residence Among the Chinese, by Robert Fortune, 1857, p. 190. 



