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lowlands have proved to resist our occasional night frosts 

 of the low country. But in colder places the many sub-alpine 

 species could be reared. Be it remembered that Chusque 

 aristata advances to an elevation of 15,000 feet on the 

 Andes of Quito, indeed to near the zone of perpetual ice. 

 Arundinaria falcata, A. racemosa and A. spathiflora live on 

 the Indian highlands, at a zone between 10,000 feet and 

 11,000 feet, where they are annually beaten down by snow. 

 We may further recognize the great importance of these 

 plants, when we reflect on their manifest industrial uses, or 

 when we consider their grandeur for picturesque scenery, 

 or when we observe their resistance to storms of heat, or 

 when we watch the marvellous rapidity, in which many 

 develope themselves. Their seeds, though generally only in 

 long intervals produced, are valued in many instances higher 

 than rice. The ordinary great Bamboo of India is known 

 to grow 40 feet in 40 days, when bathed in the moist heat of 

 the jungles. The Bourbon Bamboo forms an impenetrable 

 sub-alpine belt of extraordinary magnificence in yonder 

 island. One of the Tesserim Bambusas rises to 150 feet, 

 with a diameter of the mast-like cane sometimes measuring 

 fully 1 foot. The great West Indian Arthrostylidiuni is 

 sometimes nearly as high and quite as columnar in its form, 

 while the Dendrocalamus at Pulo Greum is equally colossal. 

 The Platonia Bamboo of the highest wooded mountains of 

 Parama sends forth leaves 15 feet in length and 1 foot in 

 width. Arundinaria macrosperma as far north as Phila- 

 delphia rises still in favorable spots to a height of nearly 

 40 feet. Through perforating with artistic care the huge 

 canes of various Bamboos 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 20 genera with 170 well-marked species are 

 circumscribed 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 Ptolemaeus and Julius Csesar already longed to 



