306 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Bamboos. By Dr. Carl Curt Horsens (Beih. Bot. Cent. xxx. Abt. 

 2, Heft I, pp. 1-69, October 1913, with 12 figs.). — The author gives 

 in this paper a vast amount of miscellaneous information regarding 

 bamboos, for the most part collected from Watt, Munro, Gamble, and 

 other authorities; but he includes a few observations made by 

 himself in Siam. 



He gives, e.g., a list of the species seen by him in various herbaria ; 

 he also details observations showing the extraordinary rapidity of 

 growth of certain kinds. Oxytenanthera abessinica, e.g., grew 3 feet 5| 

 inches in a week, and others over ten inches in two days. 



In Siam bamboos occur on nummuhtic limestone, archaean rocks, 

 and flood lands chiefly, but elsewhere seem to appear as secondary 

 woods in places where the primitive parent has been cleared. 



There is also a long discussion on the flowering of bamboos. Many 

 flower in the Indo-Malayan region at an age of 25-35 years. There 

 seem to be three groups of bamboos. There are annually-flowering 

 species, others which flower irregularly, and a third group in which ah 

 the descendants of one seed period appear to bloom together, after 

 which the culms and frequently the rhizome itself die. Whether this is 

 exactly the case or not does not seem to be clearly made out, but the 

 author gives numerous references and conflicting opinions on the 

 point. 



Certainly a particularly hot and dry year which makes the rice crop 

 a failure frequently brings about a profuse flowering of the bamboos, so 

 that in a famine year there is often an abundant supply of bamboo 

 seed, which is of the greatest possible value to the natives. 



The author describes the manna found, though rarely, on the outside 

 of the bamboo shoot, and caused by insect injury, and the tabaschir 

 found within the shoot and which is used medicinally. A large part 

 of the paper deals with the various uses of the bamboo. Water is 

 found within the internodes ; fresh green stems thrown on the fire 

 burst explosively, and are said to have been used to frighten off wild 

 beasts. These uses are too various, however, to be given in detail, so 

 that we shall merely mention some of the most outstanding, as, e.g., 

 clothing, hats, fans, flasks, combs, brooms, toothpicks, cooking pots, 

 beer mugs, stools, musical instruments, measuring rods, hockey baUs, 

 arrows and bows, shields, poles, baskets, houses, rafts, bridges, irri- 

 gating pipes, and so on indefinitely. (We have not noticed any reference 

 to the head-hunter's knife, which is a shver of bamboo, or to the method 

 of lighting a fire by friction of bamboos.) Details are also given of the 

 yield of bamboos from an acre in view of their plantation on a large 

 scale for papermaking. These last are quotations from Raitt and 

 Lindall.— G. F. S. E, 



Basic Slag, The Wagner Test as a Measure of the Availability 

 of the Phosphate in. By H. E. Jones (Jour. Bd. Agr. vol. xxi. 

 No. 3, pp. 201-206). — Basic slag is frequently sold on the basis 

 of its " citric solubility," i.e. the percentage of phosphate which 



