298 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



Himalaya and Cochinchina, Malacca, Sumatra, Bangka, and 

 Java ; Seychelles Islands (Mahe, Victoria, J. Stanley Gardiner). 



Spring's affirmation that the species also occurs in West Africa 

 refers, as already suggested by Baker, to S. scandens, whilst his 

 further statement that it is found in Brazil is probably based on 

 cultivated specimens or escapes. The specimens collected by 

 Bonpland in Equatorial America and preserved in the Paris 

 Museum are not known to me, but it is practically certain that 

 they do not belong to S. Willdenowii. Spring also enumerates 

 the plant from the Philippines, quoting Cuming, no. 2417, but 

 Cuming's specimen was from Singapore (see Eolfe in Journ. Linn. 

 Soc. Bot. vol. xxi. 287), and the plant has not been found so far 

 in the Philippines, notwithstanding the exhaustive researches of 

 Merrill, Copeland, Elmer, and others. It is represented there by 

 S. Engleri Hieron. and S. Whitfordii Hieron. Nor do the speci- 

 mens collected by Naumann in MacCluer Bay, New Guinea, in 

 1875, and named S. Willdenoivii by Al. Braun, belong to that 

 species; they' are rather referable to a closely allied form which, 

 according to a communication by Capt. Van Alder we velt von 

 Eosenburgh, is identical with specimens collected by Treub near 

 Skru, and by Teijsmann near Doreh, New Guinea. This form he 

 calls S. muricata Cesati, var. inermis v. A. v. R. msc. S. TI7//- 

 denowii has therefore to be struck off the list of New Guinea 

 ^-plants. 



REPORTS OF DEPT. OF BOTANY, BRITISH MUSEUM, 1908-12. 



By A. B. Rendle, D.Sc, F.R.S. 



[Until the Editor left the Department of Botany in 1908, the 

 Reports of the Department relating to the annual acquisitions 

 had regularly appeared in this Journal. By some oversight this 

 was discontinued, and it was only comparatively lately that atten- 

 tion was called to the omission. The Reports, which are included 

 in the Annual Return of the British Museum, are published by 

 H.M. Stationery Office, and may be purchased through any book- 

 seller, but it has been found convenient to refer to the abstracts 

 given in the Journal by various authors — e. g. the information 

 as to the more recent Museum collections given in Alphonse 

 De Candolle's La Phytographie is almost entirely drawn from 

 these pages. We therefore propose to supply the missing Reports, 

 which will we hope be completed by the end of the present year. 

 It will be observed that with the Report for 1911 a new and more 

 convenient arrangement has been introduced. — Ed. Journ. Bot.] 



Acquisitions, 1908. 



The following additions have been made to the collections by 

 presentation : — 396 phanerogams from Uganda, from Dr A. G. 

 Bagsiiawe ; 215 phanerogams and 30 cryptogams from Rhodesia, 

 from F. Eyles ; 126 specimens from Uganda, from Mrs Sybil M. 

 Tufnell; 38 specimens from the Soudan, from the Director of 



