INTRODUCTION. 
Tue tribe of the Вамвозеж is a section of the great natural order GRAMINES, 
the grasses, and is especially remarkable by containing those large tree-like 
members of the family whieh are so characteristic of the tropical regions of the 
globe and so useful to man in the localities where they are found. From the 
earliest times, travellers have been struck with the beauty and importance of the 
members of the tribe. Ruprecht in his Monograph, published in 1839, says that the 
first mentions of bamboos occur in the works of Ctesius, in the letter from 
Alexander the Great to Aristotle, and in the Natural History of Pliny. After that a 
considerable blank occurs, so that the next references are to be found in the works 
of Lobelius (1571), Clusius (1601), Garcia (1605), Marcgrave (1648), Piso (1658), 
C. Bauhin (1671), van  Rheede (1678), Pluckenet (1696), Kaempfer (1712), 
J. Burmann (1737), etc., although in most cases it is difficult to say what species are 
referred to. ‘The first writer on Indian bamboos was van Rheede, who in his ** Hortus 
Malabaricus” described and figured two kinds which we now identify as the species 
Bambusa arundinacea and Ochlandra Rheedi. — Pluckenet in his * Almagestum 
botanicum” refers to these two again as “ Arundo arborea, Mambu vel Bambu dicta" 
and “Arundo arborea, Bambu species altera," and gives а third “ Arundo arbor 
indica procera mungell dicta.” In 1750 appeared Ше “Herbarium Amboinense ” 
of Rumphius, who divided the bamboos known to him into eight classes, viz.— 
1. Arundo Arbor tenuis, Leleba. 
Cratium, Bulu seru. 
spiculorum, ,, tuy. 
2. 
3. 
4. н »  Vasaria, » Jaca. 
5. 5 » aspera, » potong. 
6. 3; » maxima, /, sammat. 
+: » spinosa, » baduri, 
8. » » fer, ә сапа. 
and these classes again into various kinds ; so that, for instance, the first class was 
subdivided into six, viz.—Leleba alba, nigra, prava, picta, lineata, amahussana, The 
identification of Rumphius’ bamboos has afforded work for several botanists, as, for 
instance, Schultes in 1830, and Miquel in 1855 4 but it is hardly worth while here 
to give the results, for most of the species mentioned do not belong to the region 
to which the present work relates but rather to that of the great Malay 
Archipelago. 
Ann. Roy. Вот. GARD. CarcurrA, Vor. УП. 
