2 7 6 



THE SEEDING OF BAMBOOS. 



in India; for although a certain number of them seed 

 every year, 



" A general seeding of bamboos occurs only once in about 

 thirty years; when every bamboo over a vast tract of country 

 will drop its leaves, and form at the end a large panicle of 

 flowers, followed by the formation and shedding of myriads 

 of seeds, hardly to be distinguished from rice. This done 

 the bamboo immediately dies, while a fresh and vigorous, 

 crop at once begins to spring up from the seed." * 



According to Smith's Dictionary of Economic plants, 

 a general flowering of bamboos took place in Bengal 

 and other parts of India, from 1864 to i866.f It is now, 

 however, as we have before stated, an ascertained fact 

 that bamboos of most kinds, besides propagating them- 

 selves by seed, will throw out " suckers " from the roots,, 

 much like a gigantic species of couch grass, when 

 the old shoots die down ; and some species do not die 

 at all after seeding. In these cases much will depend 

 upon soil and circumstances. 



But although the bamboo is the largest and most 

 remarkable of the arborescent grasses, there are many 

 other kinds which grow to a height of from twenty 

 to thirty feet, with stout woody stems, sometimes, 

 considerably thicker than a man's thumb; which form 

 the almost impenetrable grass forests, or jungles, which 

 cover considerable extents of country in many tropical 

 regions. In these dense coverts, an army might be 

 hidden from view, as completely as a rabbit in a 

 European meadow. Many of these grasses grow in 

 immense tussocks, which in India are usually included 



* The Highlands of Central India, by Captain James Forsyth, 

 Bengal Staff Corps, 1889, p. 106. 



f Dictionary of Economic Plants, by John Smith, A.L.S., article 

 " Bamboos." 



