236 



between the Botanic Gardens and the Bengal-Nagpur Railway Com- 

 pany's goods sidings at Shalimar, whence there is a railway ferry 

 ■service to the other side of the river Hughli, by which goods waggons 

 are sent over to the docks. 



At a later date than the first record, the plant was found to be 

 abundant about Chittagong and to have been there at least since 

 1898, for Mr. D. Hooper, late Economic Botanist to the Botanic 

 Survey of India, had preserved a specimen collected in October of 

 that year; further Professor Briihl obtained information from one of 

 his students that the plant had been seen ten years before 1907, on 

 the railway line side between Chandpur and Akharara — two stations 

 on the Assam-Bengal railway, which serve? Chittagong. Examina- 

 tion of the line about Chandpur in 1908 showed that it had 

 become abundant enough to indicate its establishment several 

 years earlier. 



After Calcutta, Chittagong is the second port at the head of the 

 Bay of Bengal; Diamond Harbour and Chandpur are Only river 

 ■stations, where sea-going boats do not discharge cargo ; Akharara is 

 a little inland. 



The abundance of the plant about Chittagong and Chandpur in- 

 ■dicates the east side of the Bay of Bengal to be the one on which it 

 obtained its first lodgement ; and the way in which it was observed to 

 approach Calcutta from Diamond Harbour forbids the belief that it 

 was first established on the Hughli. Probably it found a home in the 

 beginning at Chittagong ; thence it reached Chandpur along the rail- 

 way ; from Chandpur it was brought to the Hughli by the Sundribans 

 steamer traffic: and now it has reached Singapore, perhaps from 

 Chittagong, but more probably from Calcutta. 



Its further spread in India during the last few years has been 

 recorded (Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1910, page ci.; 

 191 1, page cxxxii. ; and 1912, page cxiii). It has appeared at intervals 

 all along the Assam-Bengal Railway from Chittagong to one terminus 

 at Gauhati and beyond the other terminus to Makum Junction, on the 

 Dibru-Sadiya Railway, being always found at places where goods 

 are unloaded : and it has reached Narayanganj near Dacca which is 

 connected with Chandpur by a steamer service. It may be expected 

 to travel along the railway from Narayanganj through Dacca to 

 Jaganathganj slowly, because there is very little through traffic ; it is 

 sure soon to reach Goalundo and thereby the Eastern Bengal Rail- 

 way system ; from Calcutta it is likely to travel first towards Nagpur 

 and Madras, and afterwards in other directions along the railways. 



There is only one easy way of accounting for the travelling of 

 Its seeds; and that is by assuming that they get enmeshed in the 

 gunny wrappings of packages. By reason of the greater use of 

 gunny wrappings in India than in the Malay region, it is travelling 

 faster there than it will in Malaya. 



