IN EXTRA-TROPICAL COUNTRIES. 301 



inches in one night. Their power of growth is such as to 

 upset stone- walls or demolish substantial buildings. As shelter- 

 plants for grazing-animals these tree-reeds are most eligible. 

 The Bourbon Bamboo forms an impenetrable Sub- Alpine belt 

 of extraordinary magnificence in yonder island. One of the 

 Tenasserim Bambusas rises to 150 feet, with a diameter of 

 the mast-like cane sometimes measuring fully one foot. The 

 great "West Indian Arthrostylidium is sometimes nearly as 

 high and quite as columnar in its form, while the Dendro- 

 calamus at Pulo Geum is equally colossal. The Platonia 

 Bamboo of the highest wooded mountains of Panama sends 

 forth leaves 15 feet in length and one foot in width. Arun- 

 dinaria macrosperma, as far north as Philadelphia, rises still 

 in favourable spots to a height of nearly 40 feet, and one 

 of the Japan Bamboos, according to Mr. Christy, gains, even 

 those in extra-tropical latitudes, the height of 60 feet. Through 

 perforating with artistic care the huge canes of various Bam- 

 boos, musical sounds can be melodiously produced when the 

 air wafts through the groves, and this singular fact may 

 possibly be turned to practice for checking the devastations 

 from birds on many a cultured spot. Altogether twenty genera, 

 with one hundred and seventy well-marked species, are circum- 

 scribed by General Munro's consummate care ; but how may 

 these treasures yet be enriched, when once the snowy mountains 

 of New Guinea through Bamboo jungles become ascended, or 

 when the Alps on the sources of the Nile, which Ptolemseus 

 and Julius Caesar already longed to ascend, have become the 

 territory also of phytologic researches, not to speak of many 

 other tropical regions as yet left unexplored! Europe pos- 

 sesses no Bamboo ; Australia, as far as hitherto ascertained, 

 only one (in the interior of Arnhem's Land). Almost all 

 Bamboos are local, and there seems really no exception to 

 the fact that none are indigenous to both hemispheres; all 

 true Bambusas being Oriental. Observations on the growth 

 of many Bamboos in Italy are recently offered by Chevalier 

 Fenzi. 



The introduction of these exquisite plants is one of the easiest 

 imaginable, either from seeds or the living roots. The 

 consuls at distant ports, the missionaries, the mercantile and 

 navigating gentlemen abroad, and particularly also any 

 travellers, could all easily aid in transferring the various 

 Bamboos from one country to the other from hemisphere to 

 hemisphere. Most plants of this kind once well established 

 in strength under glass can be trusted out to permanent 

 locations with perfect and lasting safety at the commencement 

 of the warm season. Indeed, Bamboos are hardier than most 



