24 



ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, (CEYLON BRANCH.) 



Ceylon, but those in the Royal Botanic Gardens at Peradeniya 

 on the banks of the river are truly gigantic. The culms are 

 said to grow to 12 inches in diameter, and are used for buckets, 

 flower-pots, &c. 



210. Gigantochloa aspera, Kurz. Java building bam- 

 boo. I have seen no description of this bamboo. The following 

 note by Sir W. Munro on G. atter, Kurz., Mon. p. 125, may 

 refer to this one:—" Kurz. in his notes, identified this species 

 with B. aspera and B. Bitung, Roem. and Sch., but the latter 

 is described as having much longer, and the former much 

 more glabrous leaves." 



211. Beesha Rheedii, Kunth. Rheede Hort. Mai. V. 119, 

 t. 60 : — Rata-bata gaha, Sinhalese. Cochin thatching bamboo. 

 Native of Malabar and Cochin, I have only seen the plants of 

 this small bamboo which are growing in the Peradeniya Gardens. 



212. Beesha travancorica, Bedd. Mon. p. 234. " This 

 magnificent species is most abundant on the South Travancore 

 and South Tinnivelly mountains, 3,000—5,500 feet elevation, 

 where it covers many miles of the mountains, often to the 

 entire exclusion of all other vegetation ; in open mountain 

 tracts it generally only grows to 6-8 feet in height, but most 

 close and impenetrable, elephants even not attempting to get 

 through it ; inside sholas and their outskirts it grows to 15 

 feet high, and is much more straggling. It is called Irul by 

 all the natives, and by Europeans the Elephant grass, Bedd, 1, 

 c. Fl. Syl. t. 324. This evidently takes the same place in 

 Travancore and Tinnivelly that our bata-lee does in Ceylon. 



213. Panicum acariferum, Trin. 1. c. t. 87. Thysanolaena 

 acarifera, Arn. and Nees. Melica latifolia, Rox. Fl. Ind. 1, 

 328, Agrostis maxima, Rox. 1. c. 317. Rata-go-tana, Sin- 

 halese, Moon Cat. 8. Introduced from Bengal before 1824. 

 I have never seen this elegant and gigantic grass grown any- 

 where in Ceylon except in the Peradeniya Gardens. 



