39 



ter of lightness, which forms an agreeable con- 

 trast with it's height. The smooth and glossy 

 trunk of the iagua is generally bent towards the 

 banks of rivulets, and waves with the slightest 

 breath of air. Whatever be the height of the 

 reed* in the south of Europe, it can give no idea 

 of the aspect of the arborescent gramina, and, if 

 I might presume to refer to my own feelings, I 

 should assert, that the bamboo and fern tree are, 

 of all the vegetable forms between the tropics, 

 those which most powerfully strike the imagina- 

 tion of the traveller. 



I shall not enter into the details of descriptive 

 botany, to prove that the bamboos of the East 

 Indies, calumets of the heights^- of the isle of 

 Bourbon, the guaduas of South America, and 

 even perhaps the gigantic arundinarias of the 

 banks of the Missisippi, belong to the same 

 group of plants. These discussions are confined 

 to another work, devoted exclusively to the des- 

 cription of the new genera and species, which we 

 brought back from our travels^. It is sufficient 

 here to observe in general, that the bamboos are 

 less common in America than is usually believed. 

 They are almost entirely wanting in the marshes 



* Arundo donax. 



+ Bambusa, or rather the nastus alpina. 



% Nov. Gen. et Species, vols 1, p. 201 and 241 of the 

 4to edition. The two continents produce each of them dif- 

 ferent species of nastus and bambusa. 



