Hope . — The ‘ SadoT of the Upper Nile . 499 
in the ‘ Flora of Tropical Africa/ Part II, vol. viii. Mr. Clarke 
gives Cyperus Papyrus , described by Linnaeus in his ‘ Species 
Plantarum/ as the typical species, and names Cyperus 
syriacus of Parlatore (which grows on the Jordan) and 
Papyrus sicula, Park, and P. antiquorum , Link, as synonyms; 
and he separates, but only as a variety, P . antiquorum , 
C. B. Clarke. He gives the habitats of the typical plant as 
Africa : Upper Guinea, Lower Guinea, South Central Africa, 
and the Mozambique District ; and the habitats of his 
variety as, in Asia — Palestine ; and in Africa — Nile Land, 
the White and Gazelle Niles, Mozambique, and Zanzibar. 
Mr. Clarke refers to an article by Mr. Thiselton-Dyer, in 
the Gardeners’ Chronicle of January 16, 1875, p. 78, In that 
article Mr. (now Sir William) Thiselton-Dyer says : ‘ Probably 
few persons in this country are* prepared to regard the Papyrus 
as a European plant, yet it has long been known to occur in 
many parts of Sicily, and it is more than likely that it is from 
this source rather than from the East that the specimens in 
various botanic gardens have been ultimately derived.’ 
Mr. Thiselton-Dyer quoted a description given in a previous 
number of the Gardeners’ Chronicle (1870, p. 314) by 
E. O. Fenzi, of the Papyrus in the Anapo River, where it 
grows to the height of from 12 to 15 feet. Macgregor, in the 
Illustrated London News, April 24, 1869, describing the 
Papyrus on the waters of Merom, Syria, said : — ‘ On this 
(morass) is a vast floating forest of Papyrus and cane, 
perfectly dark inside. I could never penetrate more than 
3 feet. Many of the stalks of the Papyrus are as thick as 
my arm. The water percolates below and through the 
spongy mass, and there loses at least half its volume by 
absorption and evaporation. This impassable barrier is about 
a mile wide/ 
In the transactions of the Edinburgh Botanical Society, 
vol. x, 1868-69, will be found a very interesting and instructive 
paper of notes on the Botany and Agriculture of Malta and 
Sicily, by Dr. Hugh Cleghorn, late Conservator of Forests, 
Madras, who spent three months of the winter of 1867 and 
M m 
