HARDY BAMBOOS. 
361 
under which our Bamboos were struggHng. There had been 
no sun to ripen the growth which had gone dribbhng on 
through the unnaturally mild months of late autumn and 
early winter, and when with the new year the thermometer 
suddenly jumped down to nearly zero, it might have been expected 
that the coup de grace would have been dealt. And yet the 
plants lived. 
As regards the more permanent effect of the trial to which 
they have been subjected, I think it may be said with some 
assurance that there has been nothing worse than a severe check- 
The winter of 1893, which wellnigh wrecked the beautiful 
gardens of the Scilly Islands, killing many rare plants which 
had stood there for many years, was cruelly felt in Ireland. Mr. 
Osborne, Mr. Smith Barry's gardener at Fota Island, in a letter 
to me, thus describes the damage done to Thamnocalamus 
Falconeri : " The above-named Bamboo throws up numerous 
canes here, from 20 feet to 25 feet. I have often wondered at the 
reports in gardening papers in England of its sending up canes 
from six feet to eight feet high, but unfortunately I have learned 
the reason this season. We had an unprecedentedly sharp frost in 
January last (1894), which killed the tops of all the Thamnoca- 
lamus, with the result that instead of throwing up a few monster 
canes to the height mentioned, they have thrown up numerous 
small canes about six feet or eight feet high round the old stools. 
It must take several years of mild winters before they reach their 
usual strength." The frost registered at Fota was 26° Fahren- 
heit below freezing point. Now what happened in the case of 
Thamnocalamus Falconeri at Fota in 1894 is precisely what has 
occurred with me, and in other places similarly situated as to 
climate, in 1895 in regard to other species. Some plants have 
not thrown up a single new shoot. Those that have thrown up 
new shoots have done so in a half-hearted and feeble way. The 
gradual annual increase of size in the new culms, which is such a 
marked and satisfactory feature in Bamboos, is not to be found. 
The stems of this year are no bigger than those of last year. 
Almost all the plants lost the greater part, if not the whole, of 
their leaves ; but this is now made up for by a most abundant 
and luxuriant foliage, and the plants, though no taller than last 
year, are in full beauty. What I am afraid of is that the recent 
wet and warm weather will encourage the appearance of new 
c 
