410 MR. W. T. T. DYER ON SOME NEW ECONOMIC 
nearly all parts of the forest treated in this Report. The grass 
grows abundantly on dry bare slopes; and no apprehension re- 
garding the sufficiency of the supply need at present be enter- 
tained. It is used chiefly for rope-making; and it is by no 
means impossible that the establishment of paper-mills in North 
India will eventually lead to the employment of this grass for the 
manufacture of paper "' *, 
Specimens contained in the economico-botanical collections re- 
moved to Kew from the India Museum showed that the identifi- 
cation was, no doubt, accurate. The error seems to have gone 
back to Royle's ‘Illustrations, where the following statement 
occurs (p. 415) :—* Eriophorum comosum, Wall, cannabinum, 
nob., “ bhabar” of the natives, of which the leaves, previous to 
the plant flowering, are, in the Himalayas, extensively used for 
rope-making.” Dr, Brandis informs me that the confusion 
between the two plants is accounted for by the fact that they 
both have a similar habit, and grow intermixed. 
It may be convenient to reproduce here what is stated in the Kew 
Report ’ for 1878 (p. 45) :—“ Eriophorum comosum.—This plant is 
well known in North-western India, where, under the name of 
bhabar ghas, it is largely used as a material for ropes. It was 
submitted by Dr. King to Mr. Routledge, who writes to us:— 
‘A small quantity of bleach brings it up to a good colour. The 
ultimate fibre is very fine and delicate, rather more so than 
Esparto, and of about the same strength; the yield, however, is 
42 per cent., somewhat less. I think I may venture to say it will 
make a quality of paper equal to Esparto.’ ” 
The history of the plant’s vicissitudes is not, however, quite com- 
plete. In 1866 Dr. Hance described} a grass collected by Swinhoe 
in 1865, “Ad Apes’ Hill insule Formosz," as Pollinia eriopoda. 
Mr. C. B. Clarke has identified a specimen of this, which Dr. Hance 
was so good as to communicate to the Kew Herbarium, as Spodio- 
pogon angustifolius. As Mr. Bentham has sustained (Gen. PI. 
iii. p. 1127) the generic position assigned to the grass by Dr. 
Hance, though the latter botanist was apparently ignorant of 
what had been previously written about it, Pollinia eriopoda, 
Hance, is the name by which it must in future be known. 
* ‘Suggestions regarding Forest Administration in the N.W. Provinces and 
Oudh,’ by D. Brandis, F.R.S., C.I.E. (Calcutta, 1882, pp. 7-8). 
t Journ. of Bot. 1866, p. 173. 
