290 KETIKEMENT, TO 1897 : BOTANICAL WORK 



But when, granting that the suggestion lamed the sentence, 

 he suggested that it be rewritten, so as to draw the currently 

 accepted distinction between these, the next letter revealed 

 that his friend had made entirely new observations on the 

 persistence of portions of the sheath (known as ' pseudophyll ' 

 and ' limb ' respectively) in the branch as well as in the culm 

 of the Bamboo, and Hooker responds (August 26) : 



There you ' 'ave me on the 'ip,' as a Cockney friend once 

 addressed me in a friendly dispute. I took it for granted 

 in my ignorance, that pseudophylls were restricted to culn 

 sheaths. That they are not suggests a close examinatior 

 with the view of ascertaining whether or no a transition ma} 

 be found from the pseudophyll to the true leaf- blade. Ii 

 would be satisfactory in either case to correlate them witl 

 some functional or morphological character of the plant. . . 



The matter of the pseudophyll is of great moment t( 

 me. I cannot find its special attributes described, or evei 

 alluded to in any other accounts of Bambuseae that I hav< 

 as yet consulted than yours, and I must bring it in in a not< 

 prefatory to the account of the tribe in the ' M. Brit. Ind. 

 (by Gamble 1 ), over which note I shall ask you kindly t( 

 cast your eye when I get to Bambuseae. Also I expect ! 

 shall have to introduce observations from the ' Bamboc 

 Garden ' under the Indian species, as to which I must hav< 

 your good offices. . . . 



I have asked Stapf to look out for any other grasses witl 

 all the sheaths normally deciduous from the node by a clean 

 clear-cut line, as in Bambuseae. I think I can name case 

 where the true blade when sessile on the sheath disarticu 

 lates, but none where the true blade is petiolulate. All sucl 

 reminiscences are, however, very untrustworthy. I onb 

 wish I had had the point in my mind when working uj 

 the Indian grasses. It is most interesting to find a field o 

 research opened up by a study of the last tribe of the Order 



The Camp, Sunningdale : September 1, 1S96. 



Dear Mitford, — Since I wrote yesterday I have tackle< 

 a proof sheet in which Bambusa sees the fight ; so I though 



1 James Sykes Gamble, C.I.E., M.A. (Oxon.), F.R.S., F.L.S., late Conserva- 

 tor of Forests in India, and Director of the Imperial Forest School, Dehra Dui 



