60 ANNALS OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, CALCUTTA. 
graceful, pale panicle, with many thin branchlets, bearing bracteate clusters of few 
fertile spikelets, which are pedicellate and intermixed’ with sterile ones; the bract boat- 
shaped, glabrous, truncate at tip; rachis smooth, very fine, wiry, curved, clavate.  Spikelet 
nearly white, bearmg 1 empty glume, then 3 flowers, the uppermost of which alone bears 
fruit, then a narrow produced rachilla, with a minute rudiment of a flower; empty 
glume *3 to *4 in, long, ovate-acute, covered at the base with long white pubescence, 
about 4-nerved on either side; flowering уште similar but longer, pubescent below only 
and at the tip, and about 7-8-nerved on either side; palea of lower flowers narrow, 
2-keeled, ciliate on the keels, cleft half-way down into narrow ciliate tails, that of 
uppermost flower not keeled, but bimucronate, concave, striate, glabrous, gradually 
attenuate into a long beak, longer than the flowering glume. Jodicules none. Stamens 
exserted, filaments free, anthers pale yellow, narrow, connective produced into a conical 
purple mucro, Ovary at first oval, afterwards depressed, flattened, attenuated suddenly 
into a narrow glabrous style, surmounted by 1 to З plumose curved s?gmas. Caryopsis 
2 in. long by 1 in. broad, cylindric, surmounted by а yellowish, glabrous, soft 
apex which is produced in a long beak, suleate on one side, embryo prominent on 
the other. BAMBUSA SIAMENSIS, Kurz MS. BAMBUSA REGIA, Thomson; Munro in Trans. 
- Linn. Soc. xxvi. 116. nad 
Burma, from Mandalay down to Tenasserim: collected by Brandis (No. 12) on 
the Salween river; by J. W. Oliver in Kyaukse and Meiktila districts; Siam, 
collected by Kurz. Cultivated in the Royal Botanie Garden, Calcutta; and, since 
its flowering and seeding there in 1892, elsewhere. 
Dr. G. King describes this as being one of the most graceful bamboos known. 
Brandis, quoted by Munro, says: “this is а most elegant bamboo, on account of the 
« regularity of the nodes," and that it is largely brought to Moulmein and used for 
umbrella handles. The description of В. regia, Thomson, by Munro in Trans. Linn. 
Soc, xxvi. 116, clearly refers to this plant, but the specimens marked by Kurz 
В. regia, Т. Thomson, in the Herbarium of the Royal Botanic Garden, Caloutta 
(Brandi? No. 379 from Yénzalin, 1862; and Kurz No. 152 from the Karen country), 
belong to Dendrocalamus membranaceus, Munro, and with the doubt whether the name 
Bambusa regia, T. Thomson, really was meant for this species, I prefer to adhere to the 
specific name siamensis. lt is easily distinguished from 7. Oliveri by its much smaller 
size in almost all respects. Excellent specimens of the leaves and sheaths have been 
received from J. W. Oliver, Conservator of Forests in Upper Burma, who calls it Tiyowa 
(Burm.)—the * Umbrella-handled bamboo”; and from Mr. Lane-Ryan, Extra Assistant 
Conservator of Forests, who gives it the same name and also that of Kyaung-wa, 
the latter name meaning ‘Monastery bamboo,’ It is reported to be commonly 
cultivated in monastery gardens in nearly all the villages of the  Kyaukse and 
Meiktila districts, and the culms are sometimes used for making the handles of large 
umbrellas of State for which they are extremely well adapted, "n light and strong 
and straight. 
. Prawe No. 51.—Thyrsostachys siamensis, Gamble. 1, leaf-branch; 2, Селища Fames 
of natural size; З, culm-sheath—reduced ; 4, ӨЗЕК 5, empty glume; 6, flowering 
glume; 7 & 8, palea of lower Ве. ; 9 & 10, palea of upper flowers; 11, 
anther; 12 & 13, ovary, style and stigmas; 14 & 15, caryopsis—all enlarged. ( АН 
irom mod Botanic Garden, Calcutta, specimens.) 
