Notes . 
447 
observed, did Dr. Schweinfurth mention it in the works I quoted 
from. But it was difficult to believe that the botanists of the British 
Museum could have made the mistake imputed to them. After the 
article was published I read Sir Harry Johnston’s 1 The Uganda 
Protectorate/ and found in it a description of the ‘ Sadd/ in which, 
after describing the growth of the Papyrus plant, he says : — 
‘A long Phragmites reed, with fluffy-like plumes like the Pampas 
grass, grows out into the shallow water, and builds barriers into the 
stream which arrest the floating islands of papyrus ; or this reed may 
form floating islands of its own. Papyrus may prosper so much on 
the floating islands, composed mainly of its own roots, that these 
roots may reach the thickness of a man’s leg, and grow downwards 
twenty feet below the top of the floating islands/ 
Next, my attention was drawn to the paper on ‘ The Botany of 
the Speke and Grant Expedition/ published in the Transactions 
of the Linnean Society, London, vol. xxix, in which, at p. 173, was 
found the following : 
‘ 19. Phragmites communis , Trin. ; Kunth, Enum. PI. i, 25. 
Arundo phragmitis, L., App. Speke’s Journ. 653. Hab., from 4 0 55' 
N. lat. and northward, Col. Grant ! A cosmopolitan species. 
‘ [Reed in Unyoro marshes, 21st Sept. 1862. Not in flower. 8 feet 
high, erect, round stem, tubular between the joints. Leaves 2 spans 
long, 2 inches broad at their bases, stiff, smooth, not filed at their 
edges or on their surfaces, alternate, their bases clasp the stem, and 
grow regularly in one plane from the right and left sides only. 
* Native name and uses : “ Mataetae.” The flutes and whistles 
of the Waganda are made of this reed. It is said to grow as thick 
as the arm in Nyassa, n° S. lat., where the natives make a fence 
of it. . . . It extends in one great sea for 1,100 miles north of 
4° 55' N. lat. — J. A. G.].’ 
From all this it is clear that Sir William Garstin, or the officer 
under him who collected the specimens of the ‘ Sadd ’ plants which 
were sent to the British Museum, possibly owing to absence of 
inflorescence, failed to distinguish between the two large grasses which 
probably were growing together in the same * Sadd.’ 
Phragmites communis is the largest grass indigenous to Britain ; 
and in the Dehra Dun district, and other parts of British India, it 
covers square miles of swampy ground, and is commonly called 
Elephant or Tiger grass, from its size, 15 to 20 feet in height, or, 
