tap nutrients from a host plant. The latter point, at least, may be explicable by Toba having observed (or heard described by a Khaling informant) L. formosa growing epiphytically upon a tree in a deposit of humus. The plant is certainly often to be observed growing as a lithophyte - specifically a chasmophyte - in a minimal substrate e.g. from bird droppings deposited in rock crevices or in cracks in the mortar of old walls. Indeed the plant has been observed growing as a (non-native) epiphyte on the tree fern Dicksonia squarrosa in a survey conducted recently in New Zealand. Traditional Chinese medicine In Standard Chinese L. formosa is best-known under the common name 鬼吹簫 (Guĭ chuī xiāo) - approximate pronunciation "gwé chwé siaaow" - meaning ghost flute (literally ghost-blown Flute) / "xiao of the spirits", although Zhang et al. list also (in translation only) other common names rendered as "gun barrel", "hollow wood", "wild lupine" and the more cryptic "golden chicken lock". In the semi-humoral system of Traditional Chinese medicine, as practised in southwest China, the plant is believed to remove excess "dampness" (湿; shī) and "heat" (火; huǒ), to promote blood circulation and to stop bleeding. It is also used to treat (among other diseases/disease concepts) "damp heat jaundice" (referable possibly to hepatitis), arthritic pain (notably that caused by rheumatoid arthritis), asthma, irregular menstruation, cystitis and bone fracture. L. formosa is regarded in China as the pre-eminent medicinal species of its genus and has been used there as such for millennia. 'Ghost flute' and other Chinese common names The shrub acquired its picturesque folkloric name of ghost flute (and also that of 鬼竹子 : Guǐ zhúzi : ghost bamboo) in reference to the eerie piping sounds produced by the broken, hollow stems of the plant when blown upon by the wind. Nowadays in the city, the street lights are so bright, even late at night, but it wasn't like that in the countryside when I was a lad. Moonlit nights weren't so bad, but, when you were out walking and there was no moon, it'd be pitch black and you'd start to imagine all sorts of things... When I was a child and I and a few friends would be walking along beside these bushes, they'd make the sound of a flute: I would always think that there really was someone playing the flute, but then I'd look