606 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. {|December, 1908. 
College it soon became a prominent feature of the riverside flora, 
specially adorning occasional rubbish heaps with its deep green 
spherical masses of foliage. When the Port Commissioners 
proceeded with the rectification of the pean tt throwing up 
spurs, Oroton sparsiflorus experienced a temporary all one 
single specimen having escaped a ites All the seeds, ‘how- 
ever, had, of course, not been destroyed, and a new aaieesiion is 
rapidly taking the place of the old, having found inthe new 
miei just the locality which suits its predilections. Croton 
new road ite from the Bataitola "Police Station to Sibpur 
Ghat. There it forms a dense strip of vegetation along the 
short branch-railway embankment between the railway yard and 
the Bengal Flour Mill. I have not discovered it along the banks 
of the Hugli above the Shalimar railway yard, nor have I been 
able to trace it between Howrah and Utterpara. On the right 
ly not able to get across rice-fields, as 1 have not met w with it 
along the Howrah-Andul road and in other places west of the 
river. I have undertaken some bicycle excursions east of the 
Hughli, below Calcutta, with the special purpose of establishing 
the northern limit of the present distribution of Croton sparsiflorus 
no further trace of it down to, the 20th mile-stone, nor could I 
discover it along the roads running east and west of the Diamond 
Harbour road. This isolated appearance of the plant is rather 
puzzling. 
On the 26th of April, 1908, I searched for the plant along the 
Budge-Budge Road down to the 18th mile-stone without seeing a 
single specimen. But on the river banks in Budge-Budge it 
had established itself firmly, and it was eer on an open plot 
of land, which evidently had been cleared for the purpose of 
laying out a garden, that 1 met with some of the finest sa 
mens of Croton sparsiflorus that I ever have come across. I hav 
followed it up to Garden Reach, = ane seems to raat 
tetnentnend. of the Sibpur C Gllege, Bata Heiendée shor 
Datta, informed me, in a letter dated the 13th July, 1907, that he 

