34 SEDGES—PAPYRUS——BHABHUR. 
by Nees von Esenbeck), the Madoorkati of the Bengalees, 
which is extremely common about Calcutta and in Bengal, 
is very extensively employed for making the elegant, shining 
and useful mats for which the capital of India is famous, and 
which are frequently imported into Europe. Dr. Roxburgh 
states that the culms or stalks of the plant when green are 
split into three or four pieces, which in drying, contract so 
much as to bring the margins in contact, in which state they 
are woven into mats, and thus show a nearly similar surface on 
both sides. Specimens of the strips of this sedge were sent 
to the Exhibition of 1851, as well as mats made of them. 
These strips are tied up in bundles about four inches in 
diameter and four feet in length, and seem, besides their 
extensive use for mat-making to be well adapted for platting. 
The cotton-grass (Eriophorum) of Europe is a conspicuous 
ornament of turf-bogs and marshy moors, from having its seeds 
clothed at the base with a silky or cotton-like substance. 
With this, pillows are sometimes stuffed, and wicks of candles 
as well as paper, made. There is a species of the genus very 
common in the Himalayas, both in low valleys and at con- 
siderable elevations. This, I named Eriophorum cannabinum, 
in consequence of my finding it everywhere employed in 
making ropes for all ordinary purposes by the mountaineers. 
Its name, bhabhur and bhabhuree, has a considerable resem- 
blance to that of the papyrus, considering that the 6 and p 
are letters so frequently interchanged for each other. All 
who have scrambled up the steeps of the Himalayas are sen- 
sible of the great support they have received from the tough- 
ness of the tufts of the bhabhur. Specimens of the dried 
leaves, made up into bundles about three feet in length, were 
sent to the Exhibition of 1851, from Beerbhoom. Also twine 
made from it: this, though rough, is strong and well fitted 
for ordinary purposes. 
, Capt. Huddleston, in a paper on the Hemp and other 
fibres of Gurhwal, in the Himalayas (‘Trans. Agric. Soc. of 
India,’ vili, p. 272), mentions the Bhabhur as holding a conspi- 
cuous place, “from its extensive use and most abundant supply 
throughout the whole of the hills, affording a most economical 
substitute as an article of cordage, in lieu of others of a more 
costly and durable nature. All the jhoolas or rope bridges, 
