BAMBOO. 
By Henry G. HUBBARD. 
[NoteE.—The following article, kindly written for this Bulletin by Mr. Henry G. 
Hubbard, of Crescent City, Fla., is valuable, not only for the facts it contains, but 
because they are based upon the practical experience of the writer in the cultivation 
of the plant. 
The tribe Bambusz (bamboos), the giants of the great grass family of plants, num- 
bers about 20 genera and 200 species, of which the one Mr. Hubbard describes is at 
once the most common and the most useful. In addition to the genus Bambusa, the 
genera Arundinaria, Arundo, Dendrocalamus, and Guadua are the most important. 
The canes which grow in swampy places throughout the Southern States from Mis- 
souri to Florida belong to this tribe, and are its most hardy representatives. Several 
species of Arundinaria and Arundo can be grown for ornament and for the binding of 
sand dunes as far north as New York, while the bamboo itself is worthy of extended 
trial throughout the Gulf region.—B. E. F.] 
A species of arundo closely allied to or identical with Arundo donax 
is widely distributed in the Southern States, where a variety beautifully 
variegated with white has long been grown in gardens as an ornamental 
plant. It attains a height of 12 or 15 feet, but has little economic 
importance. A similarly variegated variety of the larger HKuropean 
plant was introduced into Florida in 1884. It thrives wonderfully in 
moist, rich land and sends up canes annually 25 or 30 feet long. The 
stalks of this reed, however, have little strength and no durability, and 
are greatly inferior in this and other respects to the native cane of the 
canebrakes. 
One of the so-called flat-stemmed bamboos was introduced in the city 
of Savannah, Ga., several years ago. It was obtained from a sailor who 
brought it from either China or Japan. It may be seen in one of the 
city parks, where, however, it is grown under adverse circumstances - 
and is kept down by the surrounding shade trees. It is one of those 
bamboos that require moist land. In the outskirts of the town, in the 
gardens where it was first introduced, it has taken full possession, grow- 
ing as high as the telegraph poles, and making culms 24 inches in diam- 
eter at the base. It is, however, a pestiferous plant, and has the bad 
habit of spreading underground and sending up suckers at a great dis- 
tance from the parent plant. Itis this uncontrollable nature that makes 
most of the introduced species of bamboo and the native canes very 
undesirable neighbors in a garden. For this reasor care should be 
exercised in transplanting from hothouse collections and importations 
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