BAMBOOS : THEIR CULTURE AXD USES 9 
55713) as grown in the United States shows the following important 
vegetative characters : 
Culms 8 to 15 feet high, straight, tough, hard, and flexible, and of a golden 
yellow color, sometimes approaching green, markedly flattened between the 
nodes with a ridge running through the flattened part : nodes, or joints, promi- 
nent with a rather sharp flaring rim above, dark smoky brown ; internodes 
6 to 10 inches long, shorter near the ground ; branches in pairs from each joint, 
each alternate branch longer and larger than its twin, yellowish like the 
culm, wiry, and tough ; leaves mostly single, on ends of slender purplish 
branchlets, slender, with five pairs of secondary veins on each side of the 
midrib, 3 to SV2 inches long, one-third to one-half inch wide, glossy and shiny 
on the upper side, grayish or glaucous beneath, petiole short, base rounded, 
apex gradually tapering, often sharply acuminate ; leaf sheaths dry, coriaceous, 
persistent, smooth, brownish, and frequently covered with faint smoky dark 
spots ; mouth of leaf sheath not hairy ; rhizomes slender, many jointed, pale 
yellowy and extensively creeping. 
Young culm sheaths on emerging from the ground are of a beautiful pur- 
plish color. At first the shoots are completely covered by the purplish many 
striped culm sheaths. These clasp the culm firmly and are smooth except 
along the edges, where they are clothed with very fine glistening hairs. 
The culm sheath is tipped with a long, narrow, tapering purplish appendix, 
or pseudophyll, at the base of which are two winglike attachments, the 
auricles, tipped with several tentaclelike purple hairs. The ligiile firmly clasps 
the sheath above it and is short, purplish, with a wavy margin. When the 
culms get about 214 feet high the sheaths are no longer present, so that the 
joints below as they emerge from tlie ground are smooth, green, and shiny. 
This bamboo is a vigorous grower and readily adapts itself to 
any one of a variety of soils. It is hardy and v/ili grow without 
serious injury from frost in almost any South Atlantic or Gulf 
Coast State; also in many parts of the Pacific coast region. Its 
uses are manifold, as will appear later in this bulletin. See Plate 
III for an illustration showing the general appearance and habits 
of this bamboo ; also Plate IV, Figure 1, showing culm sheaths and 
their botanical characters. 
DWARF HARDY BAMBOO 
(Phyllostachys sp.) 
The dwarf hardy bamboo is doubtless one of the forms found by 
Mr. Meyer near Peking, although "m. his notes it is credited to 
Tangsi, 800 miles farther south. It has been distributed under 
S. P. I. No. 23234 and called Phyllostachys nevinii hupehensis. It is 
evident that this bamboo is a distinct form and one which does 
not seem to have been described. Without flowers and fruits it 
would be undesirable to give the plant a species status; therefore, 
it has been designated for the present as Phyllostachys sp. (PL IV, 
fig. 2.) It presents the following vegetative characters: 
Culms straight, firm and tough, moderately thick walled. 8 to 15 feet high, 
greenish yellow, often marked with dark smoky blotches; nodes prominent, 
slightly fistulous, differing in this respect from Phyllostachi/s nevinii, sur- 
rounded by a narrow- gi-ayish black band ; internodes short, 4 to G inches 
long, flattened on alternate sides with a ridge running through the flattened 
portion;* branches numerous, clothing the culms from top to bottom, pro- 
ceeding from the nodes in pairs, of nearly the same length, therein again 
differing from P. neinnii, which has one branch smaller than its twin; 
branches rigid and tough, flattened between the joints; branchlets slender, 
wiry, usually a single one fi-om each joint; leaves usually in threes, some- 
times in fours, narrow, 3 to 4 inches long; midrib prominent, usually with 
5 or 6 pairs of secondary nerves which show prominently on both upper and 
low^er surfaces, dark green with little difference in color between upper and 
