FLORA 



AND 5YLVA. 



Vol.1. No. 1.] APRIL, 1 903. [Monthly. 



HARDY BAMBOOS IN ENGLAND. 



Twelve winters, and, which is perhaps more to the purpose, twelve summers, 

 with what Sidney Smith called " their usual severity," have come and gone 

 since a few enthusiasts, following in the wake of Lord de Saumarez, began 

 to plant hardy Bamboos in their pleasure grounds on a scale which was at 

 that time quite a novelty. It is true that a few species, such as Thamnocalamus 

 falcata^ T. Falconeri, and one or two others, had for some years been cultivated 

 in Cornwall, in the West of Ireland, and in some other places. Loudon, in 

 his second edition (1854), says: "There are two kinds of Bamboo in the 

 Horticultural Society's Garden which have endured the open air for ten or 

 twelve years without any protection whatever. One of these, Bamhusa nigra 

 (Lodd. Cat.), the Black Bamboo, was, in 1837, 7 feet high, with several stems 

 varying in thickness from § to 1 inch. Though a native of India (!) it appears 

 nearly as hardy as the European Reed. Another species in the same garden, 

 B. arundinacea, has stood out during the same period at the base of a wall 

 with an eastern aspect, but has not grown so freely, probably owing to its being 

 in a drier soil." We have gone ahead since Loudon's time, and there are now 

 in cultivation in the Midlands of England exactly fifty species and varieties, 

 three of which come from the Himalaya mountains, growing at high altitudes, 

 one from the United States of America, and the remainder from China and 

 Japan. 



It may be interesting to place on record the behaviour of these colonists in 

 their new home, the more so inasmuch as during the greater part of their exile 

 they have had to contend against climatic conditions which were anything but 

 favourable to their development. It must always be borne in mind that in their 

 own country the season of heat is also the season of rain. With us that is not 

 the case, the autumn and winter, when the Bamboos are at rest, being the wetter 

 period of the year. Indeed, many of the summers which they have experienced 

 here have been periods of great drought, when wells have been dried up, springs 

 have failed to run, and, in some places, water for domestic purposes has been 

 sold at so much a bucket. In spite of all adverse circumstances, the Bamboos 



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