46 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



a 



greens or shrubs. In any case my remarks will take the 

 form of warnings to a great extent. I know no Bamboo 

 that can safely be trusted inside the rock-garden. Once 

 they start they are the most fearful of growers. Pyg- 

 maea is pretty and mild-looking, only a foot high or so, 

 but, when established, it eats up space like a motor, 

 seeming to engulf fresh pastures every hour. Ruscifolia 

 (I am not troubling here with the distinctions between 

 Phylhstachys, Arundinaria, and Bambusa) is even prettier 

 — smaller and neater, with dense little boughs feathered 

 with leaves like those of the Butcher's Broom. So far as I 

 know it, this plant, though also a ramper, may be trusted, 

 as it does not increase so voraciously as pygmaea, and 

 can easily be kept in bounds. And it is certainly 

 most dainty, pretty, and attractive, as well in summer 

 as in winter. Bambusa quadrangularis has proved too 

 tender here, biit a brilliant success among the smaller 

 kinds has been B. Veitchi. This is dwarf, and big leaved, 

 growing a foot or more in height — a miniature, roughly 

 speaking, of palmata. And round the edge of each 

 vivid green leaf there fades a clear rim of pure white, so 

 that a well-grown dense mass of this is a delight to see. 

 But Veitchi will certainly prove a tyrant. It covers all 

 the Japanese Alps in a close jungle, and in England will 

 probably prove extremely valuable as a covert-plant, 

 as its hardiness is undoubted, and I have noticed in Japan 

 that its vigour always increased as it mounted towards 

 the high cold, while it flagged and died as you descended 

 from the hills. 



Of the larger 'Raxahoos, palmata is another plant for 

 general or covert use, a terrific grower when once started ; 

 with few and very large leaves to a growth. It thinks 

 nothing of shooting three or four yards underground, and 

 coming up, like Arethusa, in the most improbable places. 

 Away with all thought of it from the rock-garden. 



