x aed + ey ere ne eaeat Pert res See sie stee enero 37: ; b _ *. Mi . » a ’ ’ ’ » . —_— 1 AA aemeetites!)) ix Goretrcaey ; aaa = Steve Jos SS ron a 0 es Prom Deve sh, ~~ Say ject, Jfees IE S16 ee THE BAMBOO GARDEN ve wf Reh Pa a Reel Sg Ay ysl te 2 ra 7 TE) ek aoe THE BAMBOO GARDEN BY Paes PREEMAN-MITFORD, €.p: AUTHOR OF ‘TALES OF OLD JAPAN’ ILLUSTRATED BY ALFRED PARSONS LIBRARY NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN. London Mee Wari IAN AN Di CGO;wErp. NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO. 1896 Printed by R. & R. CrarK, Lrm1TeD, Edinburgh. TO SIR JOSEPH HOOKER, K.C.S.I., C.B., F.RS. THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICATED WITH AFFECTION AND RESPECT LIBRARY NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN, PREFACE Tus little book has no scientific pretensions. It is simply an attempt to give a descriptive list, what the French call a catalogue raisonné, of the hardy Bamboos in cultivation in this country, and to focus such information in regard to them as could be obtained from Japanese as well as from European sources, and was therefore not readily available to the general “munhlia Gama af tha mattar hae alraadw anneared in a. series NOTE Since these pages went to press BaMBusA LAYDEKERI has shown flower and fruit in various parts of England. Botanically, according to an examination made at Kew, the flower and fruit are not to be dis- tinguished from those of ARUNDINARIA Srmont. _ It is possible, there- fore, that B. LayDEKERI may be a dwarfed and variegated form of ARUNDINARIA Simoni. It is known in Japan as HAKON#-CHIKU. Edmund Loder, the Right Hon. A. Smith-Barry, M.P., and = Mr. Rashleigh of Menabilly have very kindly communicated i) AN 19 19 9 N19 190 1A LIBRARY NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN, PREFACE Tus little book has no scientific pretensions. It is simply an attempt to give a descriptive list, what the French call a catalogue raisonné, of the hardy Bamboos in cultivation in this country, and to focus such information in regard to them as could be obtained from Japanese as well as from European sources, and was therefore not readily available to the general public. Some of the matter has already appeared in a series of articles which I published last year in the Garden news- paper; but all of these have been revised and corrected, while the descriptions of species have been almost entirely rewritten. The task has not been an easy one, and would have been impossible but for the very kind encouragement and assistance which I have received from Sir Joseph Hooker and Mr. Thiselton Dyer, the director of Kew Gardens. I have also to acknowledge the help so cordially given by Messrs. Nicholson, Watson, and Bean of Kew Gardens. The latter gentleman’s articles on Hardy Bamboos which appeared in the Gardeners’ Chronicle in 1894 contain much valuable information. Some of the chief growers of Bamboos in this country, notably Lord Annesley, Lord de Saumarez, Sir Edmund Loder, the Right Hon. A. Smith-Barry, M.P., and Mr. Rashleigh of Menabilly have very kindly communicated Vili THE BAMBOO GARDEN to me their experiences of Bamboo cultivation in various parts of these islands. M. Latour-Marliac, of Temple-sur- Lot, Lot-et-Garonne, France, the greatest European importer of these plants, has always been most amiably ready to furnish me with the results of his observations. To all of these gentlemen my thanks are due. Messrs. Riviere’s beautifully illustrated book, Les Bambous, and the late General Munro’s monograph, published in The Transactions of the Linnean Society, 15th November 1866, are respectively the French and English classics upon the subject. I have not hesitated to draw largely upon such rich storehouses of knowledge; but since the publication of those works many new species have been discovered, and they are therefore not up to date, otherwise there would be no reason for any further book treating of Bamboos. One attraction, at any rate, I may claim for my book in the admirable drawings so kindly furnished by Mr. Alfred Parsons, whose life-long devotion to the portraiture of plant life found a new scope in the flora and landscape of Japan, of which his transcripts by pen and pencil have charmed the reading and the artist world of England and America. 24th February 1896. CONTENTS CHAPTER I THe BamMBoo GARDEN . CHAPTER II PROPAGATION OF Harpy BAamMBoos CHAPTER III CHOICE OF PosITION, SoIL, AND CULTURE CHAPTER IV Usres—CustomMs—SUPERSTITIONS . CHAPTER V EryMoLoay—CLassiFICATION, CHARACTERISTICS CHAPTER VI DESCRIPTION OF SPECIES NATIVES OF CHINA AND JAPAN— Arundinaria Simoni ef a var. striata PAGE 12 19 bo ~I 39 ~I >) | 59 68 THE BAMBOO GARDEN NATIVES OF CHINA AND JAPAN (continwed)— Arundinaria japonica or Métaké nitida ” Bambusa senanensis » palmata » angustifolia 5, Nagashima » quadrangularis » Laydekeri » marmorea Arundinaria chrysantha 9 pumila “5 auricoma Fortunei humilis ” Bambusa fastuosa Arundinaria Hindsii 99 99 Bambusa pygmea Phyllostachys aurea a mitis sulphurea Quilioi “ viridi-glaucescens 5 flexuosa Me violescens 5 nigra : 3 nigro-punctata . 3 Boryana . - Henonis . Bs Castillonis FS bambusoides a Marliacea _ heterocycla Ar Kumasasa NATIVE OF THE UNITED States oF NortH AMERICA— Arundinaria macrosperma (or Bambusa ?) Veitchii tessellata or Ragamowski var. graminea PAGE oO © =I =I -1I 1 & 10D © CO 1 W © (0.2) 165 CONTENTS NATIVES OF THE HIMALAYAS— Arundinaria falcata ; : ; Falconeri or Thamnocalamus Falconeri . spathiflora or Thamnocalamus_ spathi- florus racemosa aristata 9? 9 3? BaMsBoos THE NATIVE HOME OF WHICH IS UNCERTAIN— Arundinaria nobilis anceps Bambusa disticha CHAPTER VII Future POSssIBILITIESs . CHAPTER VIII APOLOGIA PRO BAMBUSIS MEIS APPENDIX—Note on JAPANESE NOMENCLATURE xl PAGE 167 169 172 174 176 178 181 183 185 bo — on LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS PHYLLOSTACHYS NIGRA, FROM AN OLD JAPANESE DRAW- ING ARUNDINARIA JAPONICA Frontispiece TESSELLATED AND STRIATED VENATION OF LEAVES OF BaMBoo ARUNDINARIA NITIDA = VEITCHII BAMBUSA PALMATA ue LAYDEKERI 7 MARMOREA PHYLLOSTACHYS NIGRA a HETEROCYCLA TAILPIECE Page 1 To face page 56 bie) be) Page 218 as CHAPTER I THE BAMBOO GARDEN wi there be one feature which more than any other dis- pat tinguishes our modern gar- \ ae | C dens from the trim pleasaunces ERRATA P. 14, line 10, for “more productive” read “ non-reproductive.” line 28, after ‘first year” for comma substitute colon. ” ? d P. 40, line 20, for “ Colloquois” read “ Colloquios.” P. 90, line 12, for ‘‘three sides, there” read ‘three sides: these.” P. 93, line 13, after “brilliant” cnsert ‘‘ green.” b) +) co} P. 96, line 6, for “later” read “latter.” ’ b) P. 172, line 19, after “leaves” insert “which are tessellated.’ H La fray | 3 7 { SYNE ~ a a 4 ae of Phyllostachys mitis, Arundinaria japonica. the Brobdingnagian plumes LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PHYLLOSTACHYS NIGRA, FROM AN OLD JAPANESE DRaw- ING : : ; : : Frontispiece ARUNDINARIA JAPONICA : ; ‘ SL Agee Or. TESSELLATED AND STRIATED VENATION OF LEAVES OF BaMBOO ‘ " : . To face page 56 i ‘z CHAPTER I THE BAMBOO GARDEN F there be one feature which more than any other dis- tinguishes our modern gar- dens from the trim pleasaunces in which our forebears took their ease, playing their rub- ber of bowls decorously on lawns hemmed in by Yew hedges as stiff as their own ruffs, it is the value given to beauty of form in plants as apart from that of colour. No one who has seen at their best the giants and pigmies of the Bamboo family will deny their supreme loveliness in this ‘ respect. The stately spears of Phyllostachys mitis, Arundinaria japonica. the Brobdingnagian plumes 2 THE BAMBOO GARDEN CHAP. of Arundinaria Simoni, the trembling grace of Phyllo- stachys Henonis or P. viridi-glaucescens, not to speak of many others, have added to our borders, our shrubberies, and more especially to our wild gardens, a wealth of beauty which a few years ago would have been deemed beyond the craziest dreams of the enthusiast. It needed the energy and enterprise of such collectors as Messrs. Veitch, the brothers Villa of Genoa, and above all M. Latour-Marliac of Temple-sur-Lot (a name which will always be associated with the hybridisation of Water-Lilies) to establish the fact that, even if we may not hope to see our Bamboos grow to the huge dimensions which they attain in their native countries, there are many the hardiness of which is proof against our severest winters. Surrounded as the present writer is by a great number of varieties of these famous Grasses, it is impossible for him to doubt their powers of resistance. They have stood through four winters and 26° of frost; they have resisted an even more deadly enemy than frost in the droughts of 1892, 1893, and 1895. In the more congenial summer of 1894 they shot into life with a vigour which gave the best promise for a future when they shall have been thoroughly established. But, alas! the great Sun-God, who should have ripened the shoots, hid his face throughout the year, and when the grim winter of 1895 set in the culms had not the enduring power to resist its attacks. All the tallest shoots of Phyllostachys mitis perished, and many species were badly cut. Evidently, moreover, what took place above ground was only a repetition of the havoe which was going on underground. The rhizomes, which must have made rare growth during a wet summer and THE BAMBOO GARDEN 3 an autumn which lasted beyond Christmas (witness the roses !), can have been no more ripened than the culms, and must have been cruelly pinched when at last the frost came armed with its iron nippers. As a matter of consequence, the first shoots of 1895 were not as strong as they would have been but for this combination of adversities. The normal yearly increase in the size of the young plants was not observable. But there was no falling out of the ranks, not a single species, hardly a single plant was lost; and now at the end of a hot but terribly dry summer the plants have increased in bulk, if not in height, and hope again tells the most flattering of tales. From all quarters—I am writing only of places under the normal climate of England, and not of the favoured regions of the Far West and South—the same report reaches me: a severe check, but no deaths. As for Phyllostachys nigra, nigro- punctata, Boryana, Henonis, ‘and viridi-glaucescens, they simply laughed at the thermometer, and were as bright at the end of the winter as at midsummer. Hitherto our plants have had to struggle for bare exist- ence against every disadvantage. Ruthlessly torn from their native soil, sent away with hardly so much root as would furnish an adequate knob to a walking-stick, condemned to undergo the horrors of a journey of several weeks by sea and by land without light, air, moisture, or soil, what wonder if the poor home-sick starvelings have found it a hard matter to retain a spark of life in a strange land, where they find neither the glorious sunshine nor the bounteous rains which gave them birth? But the fight is over now and the victory is won. The death-roll is practically nil, and the survivors 4 THE BAMBOO GARDEN CHAP. are thriving peacefully, accommodating themselves to new and altogether strange conditions of existence, proof, to all appear- ance, against any treachery which the climate of the Cotswold Hills may bring to bear upon them. We need not despair of seeing in a few years miniature groves of Bamboos clothed in all their marvellous grace, and lacking no native beauty, save only at night the myriad darting lamps of the fire-flies, by whose light, as the pretty fable runs, Confucius and his disciples used to study. Up to the present the nomenclature of the Bamboos is more or less in a fog, and of the many varieties grown here some will doubtless prove to be identical with others sent out under a different name. Making allowance, however, for this, there will yet be nearly fifty distinct types which may be successfully cultivated in all but the most inclement and exposed portions of our islands. From the horticultural, in contradistinction to the botanical, point of view it may be hoped that the determination of the relationship of the various species to one another may never be arrived at here ; for this can only be attained with accuracy by the inflorescence, and when the Bamboo flowers and fruits it dies, or at best is so weakened that it takes years to recover its pristine vigour. Messrs. Auguste and Charles Riviere, in their treatise on Bamboos, observe that a large number of the family, unlike the rest of the Graminez, are very miserly in the production of their flowers, which they only show at long intervals— sometimes of more than thirty years, and they cite Colonel Munro and others in support of this assertion. Humboldt says that Mutis, during twenty years of botanical work in the swampy forests of the Bambusa guadua, never once saw it in oO ? I THE BAMBOO GARDEN 5 flower. Roxburgh only once came across the flowers of Bambusa Baleoa. On the other hand, the male Bamboo (Dendrocalamus strictus), Dendrocalamus edulis, Arundinaria Hookeriana and some others, flower every year. But the most noteworthy phenomenon is the simultaneous flowering of certain Bamboos. When the given moment has come round, every plant of the same species, whether old or young, over a vast region will put forth its flowers at one and the same moment, and, having seeded, for a time the plant dis- appears. Auguste St. Hilaire, the botanist who explored Brazil, mentions a forest of the Toboca, a gramineous plant, where he was entranced by the aérial beauty of the long canes, from 40 to 50 feet high, bending in elegant arches, crossing one another in every direction, tangling their huge panicles and giving glimpses of the deep blue sky through a spreading and diaphanous web of foliage. “The plant was then in flower. When I passed that way a few months later the forest had disappeared.” Colonel Munro called attention to the reports upon this subject contained in vols. xii. and xiv. of the Journal of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India. Sir W. Sleeman records the fact observed by him that in 1836 all the great Bamboos, which for twenty-five years had been the most beautiful feature of the valley Dehra Dun, between the Ganges and the Jumna to the south-west of Gurwhal, began to flower and seed—canes which had only been transplanted during the previous season following the example of their twenty-year-old mates— after which all perished together. Wallich tells of a grove of Bamboos surrounding the town of Rampore, in Rohilcund, which flowered and died in 1824. He was informed that the 6 THE BAMBOO GARDEN CHAP. same thing had happened forty years previously. In 1859, according to Spilsbury, all the Bamboos between Jubbulpore and Mundlah died soon after flowering. Similar annihila- tions of whole forests of Bamboos are noted in the case of Melocanna bambusoides, which disappeared after flowering throughout Tipperah, at Runipore, Arraca, and Chittagong, causing a great inconvenience and loss in Tipperah through the want of Bamboos for building. All the famous botanists —Humboldt, Bonpland, Roxburgh, Mutis, Spence, Wallich, Spilsbury, Gray, Hooker, Brandis, Bory de St. Vincent, Auguste St. Hilaire, and others who have travelled through the Bamboo forests—are agreed in confirming the facts given above as to the simultaneous flowering of the species, the death of the plants after flowering or seeding, and the rare recurrence of the flowering period in most species, a fact which sufficiently explains the uncertainty which surrounds the nomenclature of the Bamboos which are now cultivated in Europe. On the other hand, as against these observations, Dr. Anderson, superintendent of the Botanic Gardens at Calcutta, reports that in 1857 and 1858 many Bamboos flowered and seeded near Calcutta, when, contrary to expectation, there was no general mortality among the plants. So far as he was able to ascertain, only the culms which had flowered perished, and were replaced by young shoots which came from the roots ; but before flowering and seeding, the foliage of the canes almost entirely disappeared. He further states that in 1861, when Bambusa gigantea flowered for the first time for thirty years, the plants, though weakened, lived. Having dealt with the suicidal mystery of the flower of I THE BAMBOO GARDEN 7 the Bamboos in their own country, Messrs. Rivitre proceed to examine the phenomenon as it has been observed in Europe. It appears that in 1867 or 1868 flowers began to appear on two fine clumps of Arundinaria japonica (Bambusa Métaké) in the Bois de Boulogne ; at the same moment they were noticed on the same species in the nursery gardens of Messrs. Thibaut and Keteleer at Sceaux, at Marseilles, in the pleasure grounds of M. Paulin Talabot, and in other European collections. What is more strange is that the infection crossed the Mediterranean, for the plants of Arundinaria japonica in the Government gardens of the Hamma at Algiers flowered in concert with their European brethren; and not only did the whole of the canes, old as well as young, bear flowers together, but the very shoots as they showed above the soil were transformed into flowering stems. Yet were the plants not altogether killed, though weakened and exhausted by this exaggerated inflorescence. The new shoots were but from 3 to 4 inches high, and even these were covered with flowers. For a long time the plants remained paralysed. Still, careful nursing and coddling saved the few rhizomes which had resisted the epidemic ; the species was preserved, and in 1878 the canes had reached a height of from 10 to 12 feet. In 1875 M. Carriére noted in the Revue Horticole the appearance in the autumn of that year of flowers on Arundinaria faleata’ in Brittany and Normandy. The plants at Angers, at Nantes, and in Algiers followed suit. In March and April 1876, those in the garden of the Luxem- ! Under the description of THAMNOCALAMUS FALCONERI will be found my reasons for supposing that these plants which fiowered over France and in Algiers were THAMNOCALAMUS FALCONERI, and not ARUNDINARIA FALCATA. 8 THE BAMBOO GARDEN CHAP. bourg, even the specimens in pots, did the same. Mr. Osborne, gardener to Mr. Smith-Barry at Fota Island, Co. Cork, writes me word that his plants of Thamnocalamus Falconeri, then named Arundinaria falcata, flowered and fruited the same year. His diary for 11th August 1876 records the gathering of Bamboo seeds. A third instance has been recorded in the case of Phyllostachys flexuosa. It was in the garden of the Hamma at Algiers that the flowers first made their appearance in the month of February 1876. In the month of May following they were observed at Toulon in M. Turrel’s garden, and in July in Messrs. Thibaut and Keteleer’s nursery at Sceaux and in the Jardin d’Acclimatation in Paris. Allowance being made for the difference of climate, it is evident that these plants practically flowered together. In these three species it was remarked that immediately before flowering the leaves turned yellow, withered, and fell off, to be replaced by the inflorescence. Now comes the question whether it is to be taken as proven that the Bamboo after flowering and fruiting necessarily dies. Some eminent botanists, as we have seen, have described the death of whole forests of Bamboos from this cause; others hold a contrary opinion, notably Dr. Anderson, who observed the exhaustion of the plant after flowering, but saw the new growth spring from the roots. In the cases recorded above of the flowering of Arundinaria falcata (or Thamnocalamus Falconeri) and Arundinaria japonica, the canes died, but new buds came from the roots. In the case of Phyllostachys flexuosa, new stems came in the same way. It is true that the plants suffered greatly from exhaustion, but they did not perish. I THE BAMBOO GARDEN 9 On the whole, modern opinion appears to incline to the belief that the older botanists and travellers came to rather hasty conclusions in this matter, which could only be determined by protracted observations on the spot. For instance, take St. Hilaire’s case of the vanished forest of Toboca. What happened in the ensuing season? Were the plants renewed? There is nothing to show. How are the forests renewed? Hardly by seed, for the seed falling on a soil encumbered with the remains and roots of the dead plants would scarcely find the nourishment essential to its successful germination. Moreover, experience shows that even in the wildest nature one kind of tree, if destroyed, is followed by another totally different species. Is it not more probable that, given the wonderful powers of vegetation under the conditions of tropical rain and sun, the rhizomes having preserved some degree of vitality should quickly replace the dead by living canes? Sir Joseph Hooker, in a passage of his Himalayan Journals quoted below in Chapter IV., distinctly states that the small Bamboo Praong sends up many flowering branches from the root, and “after maturing its seed and giving off suckers from the root, the parent plant dies.” That is the point—“afler giving off suckers from the root.” Surely this is strong evidence in favour of the theory that the Bamboos generally do not reproduce themselves solely by seed. If we consider what ‘a stemless particle of Squitch root will do in our climate, it needs no great effort of the imagination to realise the rampant power of growth in the rhizomes of these monstrous Couch Grasses in the Tropics, or in those countries, like China and Japan, where the rainy season occurs during the great heats 10 THE BAMBOO GARDEN CHAP. of summer. This, at any rate, is the view to which their unrivalled experience in the gardens of the Hamma at Algiers has led Messrs. Riviere. We should note that, although in late years large importations of all manner of Bamboos have taken place, at the time when the simultaneous flowering of Arundinaria japonica (Bambusa Métaké) took place, the whole of the plants then in cultivation in Europe and at Algiers were but offsets of the parent plant introduced by Siebold in 1850. It may be urged, therefore, that it was in truth one and the same plant, reaching maturity at the same moment in its various parts, wherever those parts might be distributed. Possibly the same may be said of Arundinaria falcata (or Tham- nocalamus Falconeri) and Phyllostachys flexuosa. Even so, the wonder is great. It might at first be imagined that the period of flowering would recur at regular fixed intervals, when the Bamboo has reached the length of its tether to life; but Sir Joseph Hooker in his Himalayan Journals, p. 107 (ed. 1891), says, “At about 4000 feet” (on Mount Tonglo, near Darjeeling) “the great Bamboo (Pao Lepcha) abounds; it flowers every year, which is not the case with all others of this genus, most of which flower profusely over large tracts of country once in a great many years, and then die away, their place being supplied by seedlings which grow with immense rapidity. This well-known fact is not due, as some suppose, to the life of the species being of such a duration, but to favourable circumstances in the season.” It used to be commonly said by natives of Bamboo-growing countries that the plants flowered once in thirty years, and that the age of a man I THE BAMBOO GARDEN ll might be determined from the number of times that he had witnessed the phenomenon. It is, however, now established that the flowering is variable, infrequent, and due to climatic causes, Arundinaria Simoni furnishes one exception of a Bamboo which flowers in England without dying. It has not infre- quently borne seed in this country, and has been apparently none the worse. Last year (1895) it flowered and seeded in more than one English garden. I myself gathered seed from one culm of a large clump in a garden in Surrey. The remaining culms were all in their normal condition, and there was no sign of the leafy stems being replaced by flower- bearing branchlets, or of any injury to, or exhaustion of, the plant. CHAPTER II PROPAGATION OF HARDY BAMBOOS THE following observations are taken almost entirely from Messrs. Riviére’s very able treatise. Personally I have had but a very limited experience in Bamboo propagation. Nor indeed, for obvious reasons, climatic and other, is it very likely that it will ever be a successful industry in most parts of this country, though if seed could be obtained it would not be a difficult matter. In Cornwall, however, and other favoured localities where the climate is not very different from that of Japan, and where it follows that root action must be far more free than it is in the Midlands, I have little doubt that the methods recommended by Messrs. Riviere might be followed with most profitable results by nursery gardeners. There is a large and growing demand for the plants; they are expensive and difficult to obtain—in many instances we are compelled to seek them in foreign nurseries— and I feel sure that any enterprising man, taking advantage of the rare opportunities afforded by the conditions of soil and climate in the far west of our island, and in parts of Treland, would reap a rich harvest by starting this new industry. To send to Japan, or even to the South of France, for plants is an expensive and risky process. Why should Har. II PROPAGATION OF HARDY BAMBOOS 13 our own gardeners not have the profit which now goes abroad ? The hardy Bamboos may be propagated in any one of four ways :— 1. By seed. 2. By division. 3. By cuttings of the base of the culm, with or without the rhizome attached. 4, By cuttings of rhizomes. A fifth process, propagation by layering, is available in the case of the autumn-growing or tender Bamboos, but it is impossible in the case cf the whole family of Triglossze to which our hardy Bamboos belong. It may be well before going any further, in order to save beginners from the disappointment of a vain attempt, to explain the reason of this impossibility. The two or three knots at the base of the stem, which are close together and barren of branches, contain in a potential state the bud from which a new culm springs upward and the roots shoot downwards. The upper knots contain no such buds; they carry only their two or more branches which are absolutely barren and unproductive. As it is, of course, the upper part of the stem which would be bent down to the ground for layering, it follows that the effort must be abortive. Endless experiments conducted by Messrs. Riviére in Algiers have resulted only in proving the futility of the attempt. It is not uncommon to see a new culm shoot out of a branchless knot of the base of a mature stem. Great care must be taken not to brush against or interfere with this young growth. The roots do not develop downward until after it has ripened, and the attachment is 14 THE BAMBOO GARDEN CHAP. exceedingly brittle. I have before me such a culm which was snapped off by a hen pheasant; it is fully branched, but much smaller than the parent stem. At its base are two new knots ready apparently to start into life; the verticillate roots are on the point of taking their down- ward course. Had that end been accomplished, the new stem would have been safely fixed in the ground. In its frail condition it fell a victim to the rush of a frightened bird. This more productive character of the upper branches goes to show that the method of planting horizontally adopted by some Bamboo growers cannot be so advantageous as they believe it to be. I have seen it asserted that by laying newly-received Bamboos horizontally in the ground roots are struck and culms formed all along the stem. I have never tried the method myself, though I intend to do so as an experiment. But it seems to me that, in the case of the Triglossee, Messrs. Riviere have established the fact that, at most, roots and new culms could only be produced from the few branchless nodes at the base of the stem. 1. PROPAGATION BY SEED.—Owing to the rarity of the occurrence of the fruit—which, indeed, in some species has not yet come under the observation of science—this must always be the least used method. On one occasion indeed we received some seed of a Bamboo under the name of Bambusa siamensis, probably from its habitat a tender species, which germinated freely, but which we did not succeed in rearing beyond the first year, with the same seed Kew fared no better. We also raised from seed a number of plants of the Burmese Bamboo (Dendrocalamus membrana- II PROPAGATION OF HARDY BAMBOOS 15 ceus)—scarcely a grain missed fire—but we have never yet been able to get ripe seed of any of the hardy species. The seed should be sown sparsely in pans filled with garden soil—the more silicate it contains the better—and well drained with broken potsherds or stones. Cover the seed with fine soil about a quarter of an inch deep or less. If the seed be sown too thickly, the development of the young plant is hindered. Water well with a very fine rose until the whole soil be thoroughly soaked. The pans should be placed in hotbeds and frequently watered, great care being taken to prevent the soil from drying. The frames should be partially shaded from the sun and kept fairly ventilated, more air being admitted as the seedlings gain strength. Assuming the seed to have been sown in the latter end of March or in April, the young plants may bear full exposure to air and sun in June. In the following spring the plants should be pricked out into 3-inch pots, which, after generous watering, again should be placed under glass upon a hotbed to help the plants to root in their new abode. At first the outer air should be excluded or very sparingly admitted. By degrees they will bear longer exposure, until in the latter end of May or early June the pots are plunged in open beds, buried a little below the surface, and covered with a mulching of dead leaves or straw. The beds should be well watered during the summer. In the month of October the pots must be taken up and placed in a cool or temperate house, or under cold frames, which must be covered up during. severe frosts. In the month of May following they may be planted out in their permanent places. The very slight variations necessary if the seed should not be sown until the summer or autumn 16 THE BAMBOO GARDEN i CHAP. will be patent to every gardener. In the latter case germina- tion may possibly not take place until the following spring, and even then it may be advisable to help it by again having recourse to the hotbed. In all cases be it remembered that moisture is the first essential element of success. 2, PROPAGATION BY Diviston.—The best moment for this operation is, in our climate, the latter end of April. The process is very simple. The plants should be divided into clumps of two or three culms with their rhizome, in order to ensure a new growth from the buds on the internodes of the root-stock. If the tufts can be lifted with a ball of earth, so much the better. They should be planted in beds at distances of 2 feet, carefully watered, and protected by a top-dressing of well-rotted cow manure and dead leaves. With the same care they may be planted at once in their permanent homes. 3. PROPAGATION BY CUTTINGS OF THE BASE oF THE CULM WITH OR WITHOUT THE RHIZOME ATTACHED.—Cut off about a foot’s length of rhizome bearing a stem; cut down the stem to about the same length. Plant at such a depth as will ensure the two or three lowest and branchless knots at the base of the culm being covered with earth. This may be effected either in pots or in the open ground. It is essential that the stem should be cut down, otherwise it begins to wither downwards; a sort of creeping paralysis of the whole plant ensues, ending in death. Reproduction is also possible without the attached rhizome, and this method is specially valuable where, owing to the rarity of the plant or for other reasons, economy is an object. For the rhizome II PROPAGATION OF HARDY BAMBOOS Wy being left in its place continues its work of multiplication undisturbed. We have seen above that the lower knots, occurring at short intervals and barren of all ramification, are each furnished with verticillated roots and a reproductive bud ; indeed, the former may often be seen falling downwards to the earth in a little cascade all round the culm, sometimes burying themselves and rooting in the ground, at others remaining in an abortive or embryonic condition. This reproductive power may be turned to account by cutting the stem with a very sharp instrument as close to the rhizome as possible. The stem is then cut back and the lower nodes buried in a pot, allowing only the end of the last branchless internode to protrude. Slight warmth and moisture are all that is required to ensure rooting. The operation should be performed in the spring, and by the end of the year a new plant will have been ob- tained. 4. PRopAGATION By Curtines or RuizomEs.—This is a very simple process. It takes place in the spring, and consists merely of lifting the rhizomes, cutting them into lengths of from 6 inches to 8 inches, which are planted at a depth of from 4 inches to 6 inches in good rich loam and copiously watered during the summer. Care should be taken to see that each length, which will have three or four knots, should be the growth only of the preceding year, containing living eyes or buds, for the older rhizomes are sterile, those buds which have not shot up into canes having withered still-born. It is therefore only the young rhizome which is reproductive. If the end to be attained be commercial the third and Cc 18 THE BAMBOO GARDEN CHAP. II the fourth of these methods are those which will recommend themselves to those who desire to propagate Bamboos in this country ; and in that case potting will be substituted for open ground cultivation ; in other respects the procedure will be the same. CHAPTER III CHOICE OF POSITION, SOIL, AND CULTURE Bampoos are hungry plants and well repay generous treatment. They should be planted in rich loam, not too stiff, and for the first year or two should be well mulched. cara: indeed one of these, Thamnocalamus Falconeri, can scarcely be called hardy, though it flourishes in Cornwall and in Ireland. From the United States of North America we draw one species, Arundinaria macrosperma. The Andes (unless, indeed, Bambusa disticha should prove to be identical with Chusquea tessellata) and Africa have hitherto given us nothing. I shall call attention to their possibilities later on. The botanical distinctions between the inflorescence of the two genera Thamnocalamus and Arundinaria are so slight, that it seems probable that the two will ultimately be merged in one. But between these and the Bamboos of the Phylostachys group the differences are great and strike the eye at once, and it is, therefore, important to point them out. Leaving to skilled botanists the task of lifting the veil which still enshrouds the mysteries of flower and fruit, it may be said roughly that the main and more easily observable characteristics of the two sections are as follows :— In Arundinaria the stems are straight and round, the branches are partially verticillate, that is to say, they seem to nearly encircle the stem, and they appear almost simultaneously along the whole length of the cane as soon as its full growth has been attained, and not before. If anything, the lower branches are rather behind the middle and upper ones. In Phyllostachys, on the contrary, the branches begin to open out at the lower end of the stem a little while before the full growth in height has been attained, and gradually develop themselves upwards. The internode or merithal on the side on which the branches spring is grooved or channelled owing to the pressure of the branches (of which v ETYMOLOGY—CLASSIFICATION, CHARACTERISTICS 45 there are generally two, or at most three, in which latter case one drops off), which, being closely packed under the sheaths against the cane while it is in a soft state, leave a permanent double furrow on the internode, and the cane itself is more or less, sometimes almost imperceptibly, zigzageed from joint to joint. Of the two persistent branches one is always much longer than the other. As a rule, the sheaths which protect the branches in their embryo state are far more persistent in the Arundinaria than in the Phyllostachys, their dead appearance being a sore disfigure- ment to some species, as, for instance, in Arundinaria japonica (Métaké) and Arundinaria Simoni. In the Phyllo- stachys the sheaths drop as soon as the branches spring away at an angle from the side of the stem, while in the Arundinaria they are apt to bend back with the branches and remain encircling them, furnishing them with a comfort- able jacket until they are able to take care of themselves. Then, and not till then, they fall off. Many of the Arundinarias have those portions of the internodes which are not encased in the sheaths covered by a thick, waxy, white secretion ike the bloom on a purple grape, contrasting finely with the green colour of the stem. This is very noticeable in Arundinaria nitida, Arundinaria Hindsu, and others. This waxy bloom in plants serves a distinct and important purpose in preventing the stomata, or mouths which are the organs of transpiration, from becoming stopped with water either in the shape of rain or dew. In the leaves of Bamboos there is another provision for protecting the stomata in the shape of solid peg-like projections of the cuticle—of course, both the stomata and their protections are 46 THE BAMBOO GARDEN CHAP. only visible under the microscope. An illustration of a vertical section of a Bamboo leaf magnified 180 diameters is given at page 296 of Part ILI. of Kerner and Oliver's Natural History of Plants, together with parts of the same section magnified 460 diameters: this illustration clearly shows the whole mechanism. But the same authors describe a very simple experiment by which its effect may be seen. On plunging a bamboo leaf in water a surprising sight presents itself. The upper side, covered by a dark green, smooth, flat epidermis, with no stomata, becomes wet all over and retains its dark colour and dull appearance ; but the under surface, blue green in colour, and beset with stomata and thousands of cuticular pegs, does not allow the air to be displaced, and this layer of air, spread thin over the surface, ¢listens under water like polished silver! The leaf may be shaken under water to any extent, and may even be left submerged for a week, but the silvery glistening air stratum is not dislodged. If such a leaf is now taken out of the water, the upper surface is quite wet, but the under surface is dry, like a hand which has been dipped in mercury and then withdrawn, and not the smallest drop of water adheres to it. On placing a vessel of water, in which some bamboo leaves are half immersed, under the receiver of an air-pump and then pumping out the air, numerous small air-bubbles are at once given off from the submerged portions of the leaves. At length the silvery lustre disappears, and the air between the cuticular pegs is replaced by water. If now the leaves be completely submerged, the silver lustre is only shown on those parts which were not previously immersed, and where water could not replace the exhausted air,—the spaces round the pegs in this region having been again supplied with air on the opening of the stopcock of the pump in order to submerge the leaves. It may be imagined from this experiment how much the stomata would be damaged by water if the plants mentioned were not protected from moisture by the pegs to which the air adheres so strongly. A third contrivance of Nature for guarding the stomata of plants against excessive wet is to be found in “the hair- v ETYMOLOGY—CLASSIFICATION, CHARACTERISTICS 47 like structures which interlace and form a loose felt work.” This is very noticeable, even without a lens, especially on the under side of many of the Bamboo leaves, for example in Arundinaria auricoma. But those who are curious upon the subject must go for further information to the fountain- head from which I have quoted. The waxy bloom is especially thick immediately below the projecting nodes of certain Arundinarias, to wit Arundi- naria Simoni; from which it would seem that for structural reasons there is more danger of the stomata being choked by the rising dew than by the falling rain, that is to say, either that they are more numerous immediately under than immediately above the node, or that the lower part, not being protected at an early stage by the sheaths which spring from and encircle the upper node, need this extra defence. In the very differently constructed plants of the Phyl- lostachys group, such as P. mitis, P. aurea, P. nigra, P. viridi-glaucescens, there is no hairy down to be found on the stems, and the bloom is only seen sparsely scattered immediately below the nodes. Probably their hard, compact, and almost flinty epidermis does not stand in need of any protection, the stomata, or transpiratory organs being situated on the under side of the leaves." Again, in Arundinaria the axillary buds of the branches, 1 Some idea of the vast numbers of these stomata may be given by the statement that on the under side of an Oak leaf no less than 2 millions of stomata have been found, while in the Water Lily leaf they reach 114 millions ! In succulent plants, such as the House-leek and the Stone-crop, there are very few stomata, only from 10 to 20 in one square millimeter, which in the majority of plants would show from 200 to 300,—Kerner and Oliver, Part III., pp. 281, 288. 48 THE BAMBOO GARDEN CHAP. which are the future branchlets, are out of sight, imprisoned closely as in a strait-waistcoat by the sheaths which clasp the stems so tightly that until they fall aside of themselves you can hardly strip them off by force. Im Phyllostachys the sheaths of the branchlets are developed from the outer scale of the conspicuous bud ; and this bud is of no small use in helping us to identify the very inconveniently similar species, for in each member of the family it has a distinct character. In the early spring, before the plants have begun to put forth new leaves, in the axils of the ramification are to be seen the brilliant, richly-enamelled, scaly buds, which the summer will develop into new branches, beginning to swell.