OCCASIONAL NOTES. 
BOTANY AND MALAY. 
The Revd. B. Scortsccuini has. sent the following Note 
dated Thaipeng, 26th January, 1886, for publication :— 
“Kindly give me leave to set at rest the identity of the 
plant which Mr. Swetrennam refers to in his journal across 
the Malay Peninsula, as printed in Journal No. 138 of the Straits 
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, p. 13. In this paper, the 
plant is called by the native name of Memplas, and in an 
editorial note an effort is made to identify it with some kind 
of Michelia. Allow me to say, that most decidedly it cannot 
be a Michelia. The few known Michelias, and the fewer 
that are known in the Peninsula, are large trees, with a 
rather smooth foliage and have solitary flowers. Those des- 
cribed by Mr. SwetrenHAM are by no means large trees, the 
foliage feels exactly hike sand-paper, and to this purpose in 
many places it is used. I am in a position to state that the 
plant to which Mr. Swerrzenyam alludesis Delima sarmentosa, 
L.,avery common sarmentose plant, which generally makes its 
appearance among secondary growth in the low lands.” 
“ T would not have troubled you to set right this point of 
nomenclature, were it not for the many mistakes which are 
apt to creep in between Malayan names of plants, and their cor- 
responding scientific names. Lately I had occasion to note 
an error of this kind in reference to the plant which, among 
Malays, goes by the name of Ikan tuba. It is well known how 
Malays and other people make use of a certain part of some 
plant to stupefy and catch fish by poisoning the water with 
it. This substance in Tamil is called Walsura, in Malay Ikan 
tuba. It isnot yielded by the same plant. The fruit and 
