332 MB. W. BOTTING HEMSLET ON THE 



jB. Thwaitesii should be searclied for in the S.-Indian moun- 

 tains. In looking over the sheets of B. indica in the British 

 Museum, a female plant collected by Wight in tlie Nilgiris came 

 under notice, which may probably be the same. The flowers, 

 however, are very much destroyed, which renders the disposition 

 of the ovaries somewhat uncertain. 



■ 



In the Kew Herbarium is a male plant from Ceylon (Grardner, 

 no. 839) which is unlike the usual condition of B, indica ; but it 



is too young to enable one to say positively that it is B, Thwaitesii* 



Possibly this may be one of the specimens referred with doubt 

 to B, elongata by Dr. (now Sir) Joseph Hooker in his well-known 

 paper in our Transactions*. 



"Whether B. Thwaitesii^ Eichl., is entitled to rank as a species 

 may remain a matter of opinion until further investigation, I 

 am inclined now rather to regard it as a well-marked variety of 

 B. indica. No doubt it will again be met with in Ceylon, and 

 this note may assist its identification in Peninsular India or 

 Malava. • 



Eeport on tl^ Vegetation of Diego Garcia. By W. Bottino 

 Hemslet, A.L.S., Assistant for India in the Herbarium, 

 Eoyal Gardens, Kew* 



[Read ITth June, 1886.] 



Diego Garcia is the name of an island and three contiguous 

 islets forming part of the Cbagos Archipelago, in the Indian 

 Ocean, and lying in about the same latitude and eighteen degrees 

 east of the Seychelles, and in the same longitude as the Laccadive 

 and Maldive Islands. They are a dependency of the Mauritius, 

 yet until recently nothing definite was known of their vegetation. 

 Though smaller in extent than the largest island of the Seychelles, 

 it was thought possible that they might also possess an endemic 

 element in their flora, especially as the only plant recorded from 

 Diego Garcia was a Fern, As^lenium (jequalile^ Baker, which is 

 not known to occur elsewhere. 



* Trans. Linn. See. xxii. p. 46 (185fl). 



