64 ANNALS OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, CALCUTTA. 
ciliate; ligule short. Inflorescence a huge leafy panicle, the leaves early deciduous, bearing 
spicate branchlets with heads of spikelets, many together, both very long fertile and short 
sterile ones; rachis striate, heads 15 to 78 in. apart, up to 3 in. in diameter. Spikelets 
1 to 2 in. long, 1 in. broad, linear, sharply subulate, acuminate, usually straight, marked 
by the conspicuous black fringes to the glumes; fertile flowers 2 to 3; terminal flower in- 
complete or reduced to a subulate produced rachilla; empty glumes 2 to 3, ovate, mucronate, 
‘3 to *6 in. long, black-fringed on the edge, and with few appressed black stiff hairs on 
the many-nerved back; flowering glume similar but longer and longer mucronate, linear- 
lanceolate, convolute; palea very narrow, narrowest at the base, “7 to 1 in. long, 
2-keeled, white-ciliate on the keels, minutely bifid at the apex, 3-to 5-nerved оп the 
back.  Lodicules none. Stamens exserted, the tube at first short, thick, afterwards pro- 
duced and thin, membranous; anthers purple, "4 to "6 in. long, each ending in a fine 
setaceous hairy point. Ovary narrowly ellipsoid, rounded above and surmounted by a 
long fine curved hairy style with undivided stigma. Caryopsis narrow, linear, rounded 
above and minutely pubescent, tipped with the persistent style. 
Assam, Chittagong and Burma, chiefly in tropical forests, often cultivated. Col- 
lected by Brandis in the Sittang Hills in 1862 (flowers), and in the Karen Hills in 
1880; by Kurz in Pegu and Martaban and at Boronga Island in Arracan in 1869, 
1871; by J. W. Oliver in the Kachin Hills, 1893; by W. Schlich, and by myself (1879) 
in Chittagong; and by G. Mann in the Garo Hills of Assam in 1889. 
This handsome bamboo is difficult to distinguish from several other species unless 
it is found in flower. Its leaves resemble those of Bambusa Tuldu; its sheaths those 
of В. nutans and В. teres; and even the spikelets are like those of Oxytenanthera 
nigrociliata in their black fringes and narrow shape, though they differ by being much 
longer and in having the terminal palea keeled. It is known in the Garo Hills by the 
name ekserah; in Chittagong as Madi or Madaywa; in Burma under the names of 
Wanet, wapyugyi, tabendeinwa (Burmese); Wabray (Karen). It is cultivated in the Calcutta 
Botanic Garden and is a handsome kind. 
Prate No. 54.—Giyantochloa macrostachya, Kurz. Хо. 1, leaf branch; 2 4 3, flower- 
ing branches—of natural size; 4 & 5, culm-sheaths—reduced to 4 or more; 6 & T, spikelet; 
8 & 9, empty glumes; 10, flowering glume; 11 & 12, palea, the former showing also 
the imperfect terminal flower; 13, staminal tube, anthers and style; 14, apex of anthers; 
15, earyopsis (young)—enlarged. (No. 4 from Kurz specimen, No. 5 from his drawing 
in the Caleutta Botanie Garden Herbarium, the rest from Brandis specimens). 
4. GIGANTOCHLOA War, n, sp. Gamble, 
Culms about 3 in. in diameter, branchlets smooth, clothed with glaucous scurf, Leaves 
12 to 15 in. long, 2 to 25 in. broad, oblong-lanceolate, cuspidate, acuminate, some- 
what roundly attenuate at the base into a 2 to :3 in. broad petiole; ending above 
in а subulate, scabrous, setaceous point; smooth above, except the scabrous points on 
the marginal veins, pale and softly strigosely hairy beneath, scabrous on the edges; 
main yein broad, yellow, secondary veins 10 to 12 pairs, intermediate 7, faint trans- 
verse veinlets formed by pellucid glands; ; leaf-sheaths smooth, keeled, ending in a 
narrow callus below the petiole and furnished at the mouth with a short auricle 
which is, as well as the top of the sheath, fringed with long stiff white bris:les; ligule 
