from the Malay Peninsula. 161 



guns, the smaller ones forming the tube itself, the stouter the 

 protecting sheath. The tubes are straightened while still green 

 over fires, and are then hung up to dry in the smoky palm-leaf 

 huts in which these people live. 



The hollow internodes of this and several other species of 

 bamboo I found were usually from ^ to ^ filled with apparently 

 pure water. 



This storing of water by bamboos, although mentioned by 

 several authors 1 , is a fact that appears to be far from widely 

 known, though it certainly deserves to be so ; for this supply of 

 naturally-filtered water is, at least in the case of the larger species, 

 at times invaluable, especially to those travelling through the 

 hill-jungles of the tropics. For instance, on one occasion during 

 the ascent of this mountain, we were quite dependent for a day 

 or two on bamboo-water, for drinking, cooking and washing; an 

 accident having occurred to the meagre supply of water we could 

 carry with us, and there being no streams in our immediate line 

 of march, as we were following the watershed line of the range. 



That this water is actually pumped up by the roots of the 

 plant, and is not merely collected rain-water is, I think, sufficiently 

 proved by the fact that only the perfectly sound internodes con- 

 tained clear water, while in those which had been damaged suffi- 

 ciently to produce even a very small aperture leading to the 

 exterior, the water was usually of a deep brown colour. 



The extent to which this phenomenon is to be met with 

 among bamboos, and its explanation, are, I believe, quite un- 

 known. Possibly it occurs only in countries which, like the 

 Malay Peninsula, possess a very damp climate, or, if in other 

 tropical countries, only during the wet season. Probably the 

 activity which finds expression in the enormously rapid growth of 

 the young stems, is connected with the storing up of water, which 

 can be used as the needs of the growing parts require. In any 

 case, whatever be the causes of the phenomenon, the problem is 

 an interesting one. 



Vascular Cryptogams. 



Amongst the Filices, Hymenophyllum obtusum Hk. et Arn. 

 has never been recorded from the mainland of Asia before, though 

 it has previously been found as near as Borneo. 



Two species, a Poly podium and an Acrostichum, are probably 

 new, though more or less closely allied to known forms. 



Perhaps the most interesting of all, speaking biologically, are 



1 S. Kurz in the Indian Forester, vol. i. p. 239 ; also Hackel, The True Grasses, 

 p. 199. 



