274 TltE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



mis-spelling of kechaj)i by which the tree is known to the Malays. 

 Sandoi'icuui iudicuni Cav. is known as Seutol, so that if a change 

 be made, S. koetjape must be substituted for H. nervosum Bl. not 

 for S. indicum Cav. 



Demh'ohium caniniim (Burm.) is a new combination proposed by 

 Mr. Merrill to replace the well-known D. crumenatinn. This cannot 

 possibly be Burman's ILpldendrum cauinum, which was based on a 

 wholly di.ierent plant, described and figured by liumphius (Herb. 

 Amboin. vol. 6, t. 47, tig. 1) -a^ Angr cecum caninum. Burman quotes 

 the figure and description from Kumphius. Mr. Merrill reduces the 

 well-known D. crumetiatum to this species apparently because Burman 

 gives *' Angrec utan " (literall}^ wild orchid) as a Javanese name. 

 The original A. caninum is described as having large fringed purple 

 flowers, smelling of dogs — a description which does not fit B. cnimena- 

 tum, nor does the figure resemble it in the least. Swartz's description 

 of his -D. crumetiatum (Sehrad. Journ. ii. 237; 1799) is based on a 

 figure on the same plate of liumphius, fi*g. 2, which Rumphius does 

 not describe. From these facts it seems quite clear that on no 

 grounds can the name Dendrohium criimenaticm be replaced b}^ D. 

 caninum, a-wd the mime D. crumenatum must stand for the Pigeon 

 Orchid.— H. N. Kidley. 



" Dandelion Invasion." [Under this heading the Times of 

 July 29 prints, in an unsigned article, the following, which seems 

 worth preserving. The plant referred to as having spread along 

 the G.W.R. is, of course, Senecio squalid as, but Winchester is not 

 on that line. — Ed. Journ. Bot.] '" Wherever I have travelled in far 

 Western Canada I have been amazed, appalled, by a vegetable invasion 

 much more wholesale than any human immigration. Within the last 

 three or four 3^ears the dandelion has taken complete possession of 

 British Columbia, and seems to have found its optimum, as the 

 botanists sa}^ in the orchards of the Okanagan Valle}'. The floors of 

 many orchards are now completely white with its seed heads. They 

 look like the spilth of innumerable petals. Meadows and lawns are 

 in the same state. The plants grow as thickl}^ as if purposely seeded. 

 It is a question whether ever in botanical history any plant or weed 

 has taken quite such sudden and thorough possession of a countryside. 

 Cattle flourish on the leaves, and they are eaten in every other salad, 

 but the invasion is regarded seriously by Government experts. In 

 almost every district, some one j^erson is accused of introducing the 

 weed ; but I think the chief author is that great seed-distributor, the 

 l•ailwa3^ The dandelions are nowhere more multitudinous than along 

 the Canadian Pacific Railway, both on the sides of the track and in 

 the meadows or station lawns. Did not some Hampshire botanist 

 trace the spread of some rarer plant — I think a toadflax— all along the 

 Great Western Railway from Oxford to AVinchester ? The course by 

 which Timothy grass has spread in Newfoundland is the one railway 

 line that runs through the island. Probabh^ the dandelion has 

 escaped from a freight of hay. It is, after all, along with the hawk- 

 weeds, much the most widely distributed over the world of any weed 

 that o-rows." 



