494 Select Plants for Industrial Culture and 



plants for grazing animals these giant-reeds are most 4 eligible. The 

 Bourbon-Bamboo forms an impenetrable sub-alpine belt of extra- 

 ordinary magnificence in that island. Dendrocalamus Brandisii, the 

 Tenasserim-Bamboo, rises to about 150 feet, the mast-like cane 

 sometimes measuring fully one foot in diameter. The great West- 

 Indian Arthrostylidium is sometimes nearly as high and quite as 

 columnar in its form, while the Dendrocalamus at Pulo-Geum is 

 equally colossal. The Platonia-Bamboo of the highest wooded 

 mountains of Panama sends forth leaves occasionally 15 feet in 

 length and 1 foot in width. Arundinaria macrosperma, as far 

 north as Philadelphia, still rises to a height of nearly 40 feet in 

 favorable spots, and one of the Japan-Bamboos, according to Mr. 

 Christy, gains the height of 60 feet even in those extra-tropical 

 latitudes 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 twenty genera, with 

 one hundred and seventy well-marked species, are circumscribed 

 by General Munro's consummate care ; but how may these treasures 

 yet be enriched, when once the alpine mountains of New Guinea 

 through Bamboo jungles have been scaled, or when the highlands 

 on the sources of the Nile, which Ptolemasus and Julius Caasar 

 already longed to ascend, have become the territory also of full phy- 

 tologic researches, not to speak of many other tropical regions as 

 yet left unexplored ! Europe possesses no Bamboo ; Australia, as 

 far as hitherto ascertained, only five. Almost all Bamboos are 

 local, and there seems really no exception to the fact that none are 

 indigenous to both hemispheres, a remark which applies to Palms 

 as well, with the sole exception of Cocos nucifera, the nuts of which 

 .indeed may have drifted from the western to the eastern world. 

 All true Bambusas are 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 imagin- 

 able, either from seeds or the living roots. The consuls at distant 

 ports, the missionaries, the mercantile and navigating gentlemen 

 abroad, and particularly also many travellers could all easily aid 

 in transferring the various Bamboos from one country to another 

 from hemisphere to hemisphere. Most plants of this kind, once 

 well established in strength under glass, can be trusted out in 

 climes of mild temperature to permanent locations with perfect 

 and lasting safety at the commencement of the warm season. 

 Indeed, Bamboos are hardier than most intra-tropical plants, and 

 the majority of them are not the denizens of the hottest lowlands, 

 but delight in the cooler air of mountain-regions. Strong manuring 

 brings some tardily flowering Bamboos early into bloom. In select- 

 ing the tollowing' array from General Munro's monograph, it must 

 be noted, that it comprises only a limited number, and that among 

 those, which are already to some extent known, several as yet 



