81 SIR DIETRICH BRANDIS ON THE 
Besides Dendrocalamus strictus, there are very few Indian species which grow under 
climatie conditions so different. Bambusa nutans, Wall, grows in Assam, and is 
cultivated north-west as far as Kangra; Dendrocalamus Hamiltonit, Nees et Arnott, is 
indigenous in both Upper and Lower Burma, and stands the much drier and colder 
climate of the Kangra Valley.. Mr. Gamble, while Director of the Dehra Dun Forest 
School, introduced many Bamboos from Burma, which are now flourishing in the Forest 
School Park in a climate quite different from that of their native country. Again, many 
Indian Bamboos are cultivated in Cairo, and many Bamboos from Japan and the 
Himalaya are cultivated in different parts of Europe. Abundant material, therefore, can 
be had in order to investigate the effect of climate upon the formation of silica-bodies in 
the cells of Bamboo leaves. | 
In connection herewith I wish to draw attention to the remarkable fact that the 
leaves of some species cultivated in Great Britain have a much smaller number of silica- 
bodies in their bulliform cells than specimens collected in their native country. I may 
quote as instances: Arundinaria falcata, A. intermedia, A. Hookeriana, and Phyllo- 
stachys bambusoides. Other species I hesitate to quote, as I am not sufficiently certain 
regarding the identification of the specimens cultivated in Europe. On the othér hand, 
Melocanna bambusoides, raised at Kew from seeds (fruit) sent by Mr. A. E. Wild from 
Bengal, shows the same degree of silification of the epidermis-cells as specimens 
collected in their native country. 
Duval-Jouve, on p. 299 of his ‘ Histotaxie, draws attention to the remarkable | 7 
differences in structure which he had observed in leaves at the base of the culm and 
higher up at different levels in Dactylis glomerata and other Grasses. In the case of 
Bamboos, it will be interesting to compare the leaves of seedlings, of leaf-bearing culms, 
and of the few leaves which remain on a flowering culm, as well as the leaves of an annually 
flowering species from a culm terminated by a flower-panicle and from a leaf-bearing 
shoot. He further justly lays stress, in comparative researches of this kind, upon 
the necessity of always examining full-grown leaves and of making the sections in the — — 
same place. He selected the lower third of the blade, while the sections examined by 
me were taken in the middle of the leaf, halfway between base and apex. 
STRUCTURE OF LEAF-SHEATHS. 
The leaf-sheaths of Bamboos are green, they have stomata on their outer epidermis. x 
and chlorophyll in their tissue. It is true, the stomata are not numerous and the E. 
chlorophyll not abundant, nevertheless they may be supposed to have functions similar - 
to those of leaves and yet their structure is entirely different. Duval-Jouve (‘ Histotaxie, 
t. 16. fig. 14) has figured the structure of the leaf-sheath of Gynerium argenteum, Lind.» 
and my Pl. 11. fig. 6 and Pl. 14. fig. 36 exhibit that of Arundinaria japonica, Sieb. et 
Zucc., and of Melocanna bambusoides, Trinius. Under the outer epidermis we find a 2 
large number of vascular bundles, connected, as in the leaves, by transverse veins and | : 
supported under the epidermis on the outside by girders of sclerenchymatous fibres. No 2 
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