anged in
racemes or panicles. The flower differs from that of the majority of
grasses in having usually three lodicules and six stamens. Many species
bloom annually, but others only at intervals sometimes of many years, when
the individuals of one and the same species are found in bloom over large
areas. Thus on the west coast of India the simultaneous blooming of
_Bambusa arundinacea_ (fig. 1), one of the largest species, has been
observed at intervals of thirty-two years. After ripening of the seed, the
leafless flowering culms always die down.

The _Bambuseae_ contain twenty-three genera and occur throughout the
tropical zone, but very unevenly distributed; they also extend into the
sub-tropical and even into the temperate zone. Tropical Asia is richest in
species; in Africa there are very few. In Asia they extend into Japan and
to 10,000 ft. or more on the [v.03 p.0302] Himalayas; and in the Andes of
South America they reach the snow-line.

The fruit in _Bambusa_, _Arundinaria_ and other genera resembles the grain
generally characteristic of grasses, but in _Dendrocalamus_ and others it
is a nut, while rarely, as in _Melocanna_, it is fleshy and suggests an
apple in size and appearance. The uses to which all the parts and products
of the bamboo are applied in Oriental countries are almost endless. The
soft and succulent shoots, when just beginning to spring, are cut off and
served up at table like asparagus. Like that vegetable, also, they are
earthed over to keep them longer fit for consumption; and they afford a
continuous supply during the whole year, though it is more abundant in
autumn. They are also salted and eaten with rice, prepared in the form of
pickles or candied and preserved in sugar. As the plant grows older, a
species of fluid is secreted in the hollow joints, in which a concrete
substance once highly valued in the East for its medicinal qualities,
called _tabaxir_ or _tabascheer_, is gradually developed. This substance,
which has been found to be a purely siliceous concretion, is possessed of
peculiar optical properties. As a medicinal agent the bamboo is entirely
inert, and it has never been received into the European materia medica.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Bamboo (_Bambusa vulgaris_), very much reduced.
Grows 20 to 50 ft high.]

The grains of the bamboo are available for food, and the Chinese have a
proverb that it produces seed more abundantly in years when the rice crop
fails, which means, p