161 
from the Malay Peninsula. 
guns, the smaller ones forming the tube itself, the stouter the 
protecting sheath. The tubes are straightened while still green 
over fires, and are then hung up to dry in the smoky palm-leaf 
huts in which these people live. 
The hollow internodes of this and several other species of 
bamboo I found were usually from J to ^ filled with apparently 
pure water. 
This storing of water by bamboos, although mentioned by 
several authors 1 , is a fact that appears to be far from widely 
known, though it certainly deserves to be so ; for this supply of 
naturally-filtered water is, at least in the case of the larger species, 
at times invaluable, especially to those travelling through the 
hill-jungles of the tropics. For instance, on one occasion during 
the ascent of this mountain, we were quite dependent for a day 
or two on bamboo-water, for drinking, cooking and washing; an 
accident having occurred to the meagre supply of water we could 
carry with us, and there being no streams in our immediate line 
of march, as we were following the watershed line of the range. 
That this water is actually pumped up by the roots of the 
plant, and is not merely collected rain-water is, I think, sufficiently 
proved by the fact that only the perfectly sound internodes con- 
tained clear water, while in those which had been damaged suffi- 
ciently to produce even a very small aperture leading to the 
exterior, the water was usually of a deep brown colour. 
The extent to which this phenomenon is to be met with 
among bamboos, and its explanation, are, I believe, quite un- 
known. Possibly it occurs only in countries which, like the 
Malay Peninsula, possess a very damp climate, or, if in other 
tropical countries, only during the wet season. Probably the 
activity which finds expression in the enormously rapid growth of 
the young stems, is connected with the storing up of water, which 
can be used as the needs of the growing parts require. In any 
case, whatever be the causes of the phenomenon, the problem is 
an interesting one. 
Vascular Cryptogams. 
Amongst the Filices , Hymenophyllum ohtusum Hk. et Arn. 
has never been recorded from the mainland of Asia before, though 
it has previously been found as near as Borneo. 
Two species, a Polypodium and an Acrostichum, are probably 
new, though more or less closely allied to known forms. 
Perhaps the most interesting of all, speaking biologically, are 
1 S. Kurz in the Indian Forester, vol. i. p. 239 ; also Hackel, The True Grasses, 
p. 199. 
