232 IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN 



It may be well to mention two fine hardy plants, to 

 which the name of bamboo has been given. One is the 

 false bamboo, Arundo donax, from South Europe and 

 North Africa, a very grand bamboo-like plant, which is 

 very hardy, and which has been a favourite in English 

 gardens for nearly three hundred years, and of which 

 the variegated form is perhaps the most beautiful of all 

 variegated plants, but not hardy. The other plant is 

 the so-called sacred bamboo of Japan [Nandina domestica), 

 which is not a bamboo at all, but is closely allied to the 

 barberry, and is a most beautiful hardy shrub, and an 

 especial favourite with Japanese gardeners and artists. 



In one respect palms and bamboos may well be 

 linked together. Wherever they are found they are 

 each of them the most useful plants that grow. Their 

 uses are in fact almost endless, and have been often 

 enumerated. All I can say of them here is that it is 

 well worth a visit to Kew, if only to see in the museum 

 the many various uses to which palms and bamboos are 

 put, and have been put from the earliest ages, while in 

 the grand palm-house and in the open garden there is 

 a collection of palms and bamboos such as no other 

 European garden can show. 



But in another respect palms rank far above bamboos. 

 The bamboos have no literary interest, at least in 

 English literature, while the palms have a surpassing 



