84 
WILLIAM SEIFRIZ 
not a single trace of leaf growth was ever visible and the plants were ulti- 
mately uprooted." 
This peculiar periodicity in the life of bamboos was strikingly brought 
to my attention during a recent stay in Jamaica. On my first walk along 
the trail which runs from Cinchona to Morce's Gap in the Blue Mountains, 
my attention was called, by Dr. Duncan S. Johnson, to the many dead 
patches of the climbing bamboo, Chiisquea abietifolia. Dr. Johnson re- 
FiG. I. An entanglement of dead Chusquea abietifolia. 
marked that on three previous visits to Cinchona he had always found the 
Chusquea in full foliage, forming large entanglements which, like the 
tree ferns, stood out as a prominent feature of the tropical vegetation. 
The Chusquea was still there, interwoven into mats beside the mountain 
path or hanging in festoons above the trail, but the color was no longer 
green, for every plant seen on that first walk was dead. It was immediately 
suspected that this climbing bamboo had, true to the habits of its tribe, 
died as a result of profuse flowering following a long period of sexual inac- 
tivity. It seemed, therefore, advisable to collect all obtainable data bearing 
upon the life history of this Chusquea. These data here published will 
bring up to date the story of the life of the Jamaican Chusquea which was 
begun by Sir Joseph Hooker and Sir Daniel Morris thirty-three years ago. 
The present observations seem to fix the length of the life cycle. 
