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Show ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 351 The only umbelliferous plants growing in the low grounds within the tropics, observed by us in the New Continent, were two species of Hydrocotyle (H. umbellata and H. leptostachya) between Havannah and Batabano; therefore at the extreme limits of the torrid zone. (27) p. 243.-" Theform of Gramine<E." The group of arborescent grasses which Kunth, in his able treatise on the plants collected by Bonpland and myself, has combined under the name of Bambusacere, is among the most beautiful adornments of the tropical world. (Bambu, also called Mambu, is a word in the Malay language, but it appears according to Buschmann to be of doubtful origin, as the usual Malay expression is buluh, in Java and Madagascar wuluh, voulu.) The number of genera and species which form this group has been extraordinarily augmented by the zeal of botanists. It is now recognised that the genus Bambusa is entirely wanting in the New Continent, to which on the other hand Guadua, from 50 to 60 French or about· 53 to 64 English feet high, discovered by us, and Chusquea, exclusively belong; that Arundinaria (Rich) is common to both continents, although the species are different; that Bambusa and Beesha (Rheed.) are found in India and the Indian Archipelago, and Nastus in the Island of Bourbon, and in Madagascar. With the exception of the tall-climbing Chusquea, the forms which have been named may be said to replace each other morphologically in the different parts of the world. In the Northern Hemisphere, in the valley of the Mississippi, the traveller is gratified, long before reaching the tropics, with the sight of a form of bamboo, the Arundinaria macrosperma, formerly called also Miegia, and Ludol:fia. In the Southern Hemisphere, Gay has discovered a Bambusacea (a still undescribed species of Chusquea, 21 English feet high, which does not climb, but is arborescent and selfsupporting) growing in southern Chili, between the parallels of 37° and 42° S. latitude; where, intermixed with Drymis chilensis, a uniform forest covering of Fagus obliqua prevails. While in India the Bambusa flowers so abundantly that in Mysore and Orissa the seeds are mixed with honey and eaten like rice (Buchanan, Journey through Mysore, vol. ii. p. 341, and Stirling in the Asiat. Res. vol. xv. p. 205), in South America the Guadua flowers so |