44 8 
Notes. 
perhaps, from affording shelter to those large animals. The vernacu- 
lar name in the Dehra Dun is nal It there grows on land which 
is submerged during floods as well as in actual swamp ; and amongst 
it I have seen, drawn up by its shelter and support, the fern Asplenium 
(Anisogonium) esculentum , Presl., 9 to 12 feet high, with a subarbor- 
escent candex, 6 to 12 inches high. This is not the usual habit of 
the fern, which in the same locality, outside the nal , grows in clumps 
3 to 4 feet high. Elsewhere in the Dun, it is a hedge-and-ditch- 
row plant. 
‘ Sudd’ v. 1 Sadd.’ 
As to the pronunciation and spelling of the word ‘ sudd ’ or ‘ sadd* 
the following is found in Sir Harry Johnston's book, vol. i. p. 149. 
‘The “ Sudd ” (which should really be spelt “sadd" 1 — Schweinfurth 
first refers to it as “ satt " or “ sett ") is, as most untravelled people 
now know, an extraordinary floating vegetable obstruction which 
collects in the waters of these equatorial lakes and rivers where the 
lake surface is sheltered from rough winds, and where the current 
of the river is sluggish. Papyrus clumps become detached by the 
action of the waves or floods, and, driven by the breeze into little 
groups, these roots become united below the surface of the water 
by the accretion of water-reed and other vegetable substances, so that 
in time a peaty mass is formed just below the surface of the water, 
from which the Papyrus continues to grow as from a soil.’ (Then 
follows the passage quoted above, showing the! part Phragmites com- 
munis plays in the formation of a ‘ Sadd ’ block.) 
Though Sir Harry Johnston explained that the word ‘Sadd’ is 
Arabic, and said how it is to be pronounced, he did ]not tell us what 
it really means, or how it is otherwise used. But this has lately 
become known to people who are not acquainted with Arabic from 
contributions to the Press in connexion with the completion of the 
great dams across the Nile, which were alluded to at the outset of 
the article in the Annals of Botany to which this is a supplement. 
In a description of the works which were found necessary in the 
construction of the great dam at Assuan, I find mention of the 
considerable work ‘ done in connexion with sadds (sic) or tempo- 
rary dams across three out of the five deep channels which cross the 
1 ‘ It is an Arabic word pronounced like the “ sud ” " in soapsuds ” ; but this is 
really a short sound of the vowel “ a ” in phonetic spelling.’ 
