2 



COLONEL MUNRO'S MONOGRAPH OF THE BAMBUSACE.E 



Every one wlio li 



travelled in the countries where the Bamboos prevail 



L> 



the 



ha^ 



been in the habit of using 

 Oovent Garden and elsewhere, for 



•pp,n ones. This is, I believe, 



instructive accounts of the multitudinous uses to which they are applied 

 last summer very many gardeners, in England even, 

 almost daily a Bamboo which is sold abundantly in 

 sticks for supporting plants, instead of the old-fashioned g 

 a species of Phyllosliicliys. Humph says that the Malay 

 t hat the hollow stem of a Bamboo was the original womb of Man. The seeds and young 

 shoots of Bamboos are eaten by men, the leaves as fodder by horses; and these leaves 



i some countries form the principal portion of the roofs of the houses, and the 

 stulftnff of comfortable beds, as the split stems do the mats for the floors in a large 



his time 



believed 



n 



-> 



umber of houses, in Mad 



pecially 



Good 



dage and paper is 



made from the 



A valu 



fibre, good houses and furniture, and even fishing-contrivances from the stems. 



able medicine, Tab«sheer, which, I believe, still bears a high price, is found in the 



joints of 



species, especially, according to Roxburgh 



that of the Melocau 



bamb/'sokles, the cavity between the joints of which is nearly filled with it. The native 

 call it Clniiia Lime. Sir Emerson Tennent, in the first volume of his work on Ceylor 

 mentions one very curious use to which Bamboos are applied in Malacca. He says, " I 



\lalayan peninsula the 



living Bamboo has b 



converted into an instrument of 



1 music, by perforating it with holes, through which the wind is permitted to 



the most channiiur manner 



Kandingu, contiguous to 



tl 



" . . . " Mr. Logan, in 1847, in approaching the villages of 

 frontier of the European settlement of Malacca, heard 

 sounds, some soft and liquid like the notes of a flute, and others deep and full, like 



On drawing near to a clump of trees, a slender Bamboo, 40 feet 



the tones of 

 in height, a\ 



observed ; and it 



tained that the musical tones : 

 Dugh perforations in the stem 



d from it 



Tl 



instr 



ad were caused by the breeze passing throiu 

 ment thus formed is called by the natives Bulu perindu, or plaintive Bamboo. Th 

 which Mr. Logan saw had a slit in each joint, so that each stem possessed fourteen 



twenty notes." I will not, however, enter into further details 



on this interesting 



d 



utilitarian part of the subject, quite agreeing, as I do, with Dr. Hooker, who says, in his 



1 1 imalayan Journals,' that it would take many pages to describe the numerous purposes 



to which the various species of Bamboo 



are put. The Chinese, it is said, use the 



Bamboo for nearly everything they require, even to packing the tea which they send all 



the world 



speci 



Buprecht, who had, apparently, free access to the Willdenow Herbarium the 

 mens in the British Museum collected in Nepal by Wallich, in 1821, and the Peninsula 

 Bamboos, collected by Wight, describes nine 



'- 



and sixty 



species in all, of 



which he had seen fifty-five in flower. Of these I have been obliged to reduce about 



five, thus leaving fifty. In the following pages I ha^ 



of twenty geiiera, sho^\ 

 the last twenty-five \ 



b 



described upwards of 170 species 

 of this family has increased 



how largely our knowledge 



Yet there are many more, doubtless, still to describe, judgin 



from the leaves that I have seen of several species, which I have been unable 



much use of without the flowe 



to 



take 



The difficulty of procuring the flowers of Bamboos is often very great 



Itoxbur£l 



s 





