General Notices^ 197 



amined the body, and found that the tulip had poisoned it : when the thaw 

 came, these animals ceased to attack the tulip roots, {Athenceiim, July 25. 

 1835.) 



The Genus 'B^mh\ls^i. — The disappointment created by the mutilated article 

 on the genus Bambitsa in the twenty-fifth monthly part of the Penny Cyclo- 

 pcedia, has induced me to trouble you with a few observations upon that useful . 

 genus of plants, some of the species of which appear capable of cultivation in 

 the milder parts of our own island, and are therefore entitled to notice in your 

 excellent depository of horticultural knowledge. The article Bambiisa, in the 

 Penny Cyclojicedia, appears to have been drawn up with a view to comprehend 

 all the information that the most recent discoveries could furnish on the sub- 

 ject, in the most compendious and methodical form ; but I find it reduced to 

 one onl3', out of the three sections of which it ought to have consisted ; and 

 confined wholly to an account of eighteen Asiatic species of bamboo, without 

 even an indication of one of those found by Humboldt and others in the New 

 World, although there appears little doubt that some of these will be found as 

 suitable for European, and even British, cultivation as the Asiatic. It has been 

 remarked by Humboldt, as a circumstance of peculiar good fortune, that he 

 and his companion Bonpland met the bamboo twice in flower, once on the 

 banks of the Cassiquiare, and a second time near the village of Muerto, between 

 Buga and Quilichao, in the province of Popayan. {Hunib. de Distributione 

 Geograpliica Plantarum, p. 205. Paris, 1817.) Now, hi the Island of Nevis, 

 one of the Lesser Antilles, I have seen it regularly blossoming, in a dry volcanic 

 soil, every year, about the period of Christmas ; and the circumstance was there 

 regarded as one of ordinary occurrence. I am aware that, in the East Indies, 

 the flovv'ering of the bamboo is by no means regarded as a rare occurrence ; 

 but, as the reverse appears to be the case in America, I have been induced to 

 notice the fact of my personal observation at Nevis, for the purpose of calling 

 attention to the possible influence which the dry volcanic tufa (called in that 

 island terras, and employed for the same purposes, and with the same effect, as 

 the terra puzzolana brought from Italy) may have in the production of this 

 phenomenon. Humboldt says, " These arundinaceous trees, although they 

 spread widely over the marshy soil, and frequently attain an altitude of from 

 50ft. to 60 ft., rarely blossom in the New World. Neither the illustrious 

 Mutis, who examined so many guadales (as those marshy spots covered with 

 bamboos are termed by the inhabitants) in the kingdom of New Granada, nor 

 Tafalla, who accompanied Ruiz and Pavon in their travels through Peru, 

 was ever able to obtain either the flowers or the fruit of the bamboo." 



Humboldt further observes, at p. 208. of the same work, that the bamboo is 

 by no means so frequent in the marshy situations of the New World as 

 is generally supposed, being rare in the province of Caraccas and New 

 Andalusia (with the exception of the valleys between the villages of Cumanacoa 

 and San Fernando), in the humid forests of Guayana, which overhang the 

 streams of the Cassiquiare and Atabapo, and almost wholly wanting at the 

 mouth of the Apure, which traverses the province of Varinas,and on the banks of 

 the Rio Negro. They are most abundant, he observes, on the western side of 

 the Andes, and form vast forests in the kingdom of New Granada, not only in 

 the hottest situations, between Turbaco and Mahates, but in the more elevated 

 and temperate valleys, between the village of Guaduas and the town of Bogota; 

 on the western slope of the Andes of Quindiu, near Buenavista and Carthago; 

 on the banks of the Cauca (between Buga and Quilichao of Popayan) ; and 

 on the opposite side of the volcano of Rucu-Pichinca, near the city of Quito. 

 Of these bamboos, that species which, from its principal locality, Humboldt 

 has described under the name of Bambiisa Guaduas, flourishes indifferently at 

 all varieties of elevation, from the level of the ocean to a height of 860 hexa- 

 podes and upwards (about 5374< English feet) ; and grows equally in marshy 

 and in dry alpine situations. This bamboo, flourishing at heights when the 

 mean annual temperature does not exceed 61° or 62^ of Fahrenheit's thermo- 

 meter, and the ordinary temperature by day varies from 57° 20' to 66° 20', 

 Vol. XII.— No. 73. Q 



