June, 1917,] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 127 
Each specimen was provided with a label, on which was recorded the latin 
and indigenous name of the species, with particulars of the habitat, not 
forgetting the altitude above sea-level. And wherever necessary and 
feasible, particulars about the specimen itself were added. These specimens 
are to be inserted in the Herbarium at Buitenzorg. The investigation is to 
be carried on a little longer, and will then be utilised in a work on the flora 
of Java. 
Details of the different excursions are given, and a point of interest is 
the great diversity in the flora of different districts, which is partly 
accounted for by differences in altitude and rainfall. In the mountainous 
district north of Buitenzorg, for example, the flora of two adjacent hills 
proved to be very different. Here are virgin forests of untainted beauty, 
and the region abounds in lianas, Orchids, and curious saprophytes. On 
Mount Slamat water is abundant in the middle zone between 1000 and 2000 
metres, consequently epiphytes are extraordinarily numerous, especially 
ferns and Orchids. A list of rare and noteworthy plants found is given. 
Tue Kew BuLLeTIN. —It is announced that the Kew Bulletin has been 
suspended, presumably as a war-time economy. At all events, the 
Controller of H.M. Stationery Office, the publisher, has announced that a 
list of essential and non-essential publications has been prepared, and that 
the Kew Bulletin has been included in the latter list, and the publication 
has, therefore, been suspended. An emphatic protest appears in a recent 
issue of Nature, in which it is remarked that the step seems almost 
incredible to anyone with a sense of proportion of the issues involved. 
The work serves as the official organ in which the results of scientific 
activity at Kew are largely given to the world. Kew is the central 
institution of a great system of smaller institutes established in every 
region of the Empire, and these institutes exist to further the material 
prosperity of the countries in which they are situated. The principal 
sources of wealth in most of our foreign possessions consist of vegetable 
products, and it is difficult to overrate the importance of keeping the 
botanical stations, remote as they mostly are, from the main channels of 
current scientific work, continually informed on relevant matters which 
from time to time reach the great clearing-house at Kew. Any action 
which tends to lower the efficiency of these institutes of economic botany 
must operate in a manner detrimental to the mutual interests of the 
countries thus effected. The journal has been many-sided in its activities. 
As regards Orchids, we may note that descriptions of nearly 500 new 
species, mostly in cultivation, have been published in its pages. We may 
recall, also an article on the Vanillas of Commerce, in which the different 
species of economic importance were pointed out. 
