Grasses At Whose Feet Men Are Like Insects- Bamboos In Botanical Gardens, Calcutta, India.

Description as printed on the verso of the stereo card – ” You are within the 272-acre enclosure of the famous gardens and agricultural experiment grounds over on the N. W. side of the Hugli river just below Calcutta.

This is only one of many fine clumps of bamboo growing here in the garden; it is a species brought from Java. There are several hundred stalks in this one clump of “grass.” From this point you see only about a third of their full height, but over beyond, at the left, you have a glimpse of the fine-cut, feathery foliage of the same sort of growth. There is another species of bamboo which grows even larger than this, having stalks ten inches in diameter and nearly a hundred feet high. No wonder the bamboo is called the King of the Grasses! It is one of the most useful plants that grow in these eastern lands – every particle of it serves some practical use in the life of the people. The stalks, which grow like all grass stems in the form of hollow cylinders, divided into sections by occasional solid partition walls, are used for timber; with the nodes cut out they serve as water pipes. Tables, awnings, screens, boats – all sorts of furniture are made from bamboo. Sections of the hollow stalks are ready-made buckets, pails, and household utensils. The mature leaves are used for thatching cabin roofs. The young leaves and shoots are valuable fodder for cattle and elephants – indeed they are eaten by the natives themselves, as we eat asparagus tips.

The gardens here are full of such plant-wonders and marvels of tropical beauty in the way of flowers and fruits. A great amount of valuable expert work is done here by Government employés, experimenting with native and foreign plants, shrubs and trees, in order to determine the practicability of cultivating any particular species for profit.

From Notes of Travel, No. 11 copyright, by Underwood & Underwood.”

This work was displayed as part of Sarmaya’s exhibition – ‘In the Dappled Light’ (29th March – 4th May 2025)