NOTES. 
259 
usefulness to microscopists seems to have been overlooked. The plant 
will thrive at all elevations between 1,000 and 5,000 feet, and can be 
easily propagated from cuttings. When once established it spreads 
very rapidly, and a few well-established plants will yield a supply of 
pith sufficient to meet the requirements of a large laboratory. 
The pith is firm, white, and free from vascular bundles. The paren- 
chyma cells are relatively large and the walls are very thin. 
It can be obtained in quantity from the old and young stems, and 
very often attains a circumference of 130 mm. In the young stem 
the pith is solid to the centre, but in older parts the central area is 
composed of thin parallel diaphragms of parenchyma alternating with 
small air chambers. 
The petioles and roots do not yield large quantities of pith, the former 
being hollow and the latter nearly solid (vascular) to the centre. 
I am informed that it is also particularly suited for entomological 
Avork. Its firmness places it before Helianthus tuberosa, and its homo- 
genous texture and pure white colour render it a much more valuable 
pith than that from Elder for mounting very small insects, 
HEKBERT WRIGHT. 
Notes of Indian Travel, b^f a Ceylon Botanist. 
Descriptions of the Indian flora and vegetation have usually been 
given from the point of view of a botanist fresh from the temperate 
zone. It is much to be desired that more work should be done in 
India by visiting botanists — there is nowhere a larger or more varied 
field for study, travel, and investigation. It is true that in certain 
seasons the heat makes scientific work difficult, but there are many 
cool hill stations, and the floras of the hill regions are of special 
interest. It may be of use to future visitors and workers in the Ceylon 
Botanic Gardens to give a few notes of travel in India in the cold 
seasons of 1900-01 and 1901-02, in the course of which I visited a 
considerable number of mountainous districts in my search after the 
Indian Podostemaceæ, and to give these impressions in terms, not of 
the very different European flora, but of the comparatively similar 
flora and vegetation of Ceylon, which is known to many botanists. 
Ceylon, by reason of its geographical position and good climate, with 
the conveniences of travel and study which it possesses, forms a good 
centre for preliminary work to be followed by excursions into India. 
Travel in India is now a comparatively simple matter. In some 
districts the resthouses (dâk bungalows) are furnished, in others not ; 
in the latter case it is necessary to take furniture, and in all cases it is 
well to carry supplies, as but little can be purchased in most villages. 
