272 
JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
profane. Take for instance Dendrocalamus strictus, the famous 
so-called male Bamboo of India. It is found, as we are told in 
Mr. Gamble’s exhaustive monograph on the “ Bamboos of British 
India,” on dry hill slopes in the Siwaliks, on the rocky hills of 
Central India and the Deccan; it is also found in Burmah, in 
Bengal, and in moist localities in Southern India. In the 
former case, where the soil is dry, the culms are small, very 
hard, and solid, or nearly so; in the latter case, where there is 
much moisture, the culms increase in size, and are hollow. The 
sheaths, leaves, and even the flower spikelets show corresponding 
variations. In damp Ceylon, where the species is not indigenous, 
but is grown in the Botanic Gardens, I was unable to find a 
record of a single solid culm ever having been observed. But 
even in the most favourable circumstances it is not every culm 
in any one plant that will be sufficiently solid to furnish a spear- 
shaft ; some will always be more hollow than others—and this 
inconsistency vexes the souls of our military officials at the War 
Office and in the Government of India. Spear-shafts are 
needed: how is it that every culm will not furnish one ? 
There must be something rotten in the state of our forestry; 
and so our foresters are reviled because Bamboos will follow the 
laws of Nature rather than the commands of gentlemen in 
cocked hats. 
But wherever they may be found, in whatever quarter of the 
globe, in whatever conditions, in whatever variations, to man 
the Bamboos have been an inestimable gift. The Chinaman, 
probably, may lay claim to the credit of having turned that gift 
to the most profitable account; and, indeed, he is fully alive to 
his indebtedness. Tz l u Chun , “ this gentleman,” is a common 
classical name for the Bamboo; it is taken from a verse of the 
poet, Wang Hui Chih, who exclaims, “ How can I exist for a 
single day without this gentleman ? ” Nor is this the language 
of exaggeration. Just think what the Bamboo means to the 
Chinaman. It carried his mother as a bride to her husband’s 
house; it will carry himself to his grave. In the meantime it 
will have built and furnished a house for him.* The cost of the 
materials of the house is estimated by Dr. Wells Williams at $5. 
It will have supplied him with several articles of food and one 
of medicine (the famous tabashir); with clothing, with paper 
* Dr. Wells Williams, Middle Kingdom , vol. i. p. 360. 
