348 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



(the inner bark of the common Lime-tree) for tying up plants ; but as to 

 its origin, or the plant or tree that yields this beautiful commercial 

 substance, we have hitherto been much in the dark, as we were a few 

 years ago with regard to the so-called '' Eice-paper " of the Chinese. 

 We have corresponded with merchants in Havannah on the subject; 

 we have searched in vain in books, especially in the ' Histoire Botanique 

 de rile de Cuba ' of M. Eamon de Sagra, Directeur du Jardin Bota- 

 nique de rile de Havane, etc. ; and we have made personal application 

 to this gentleman; but all in vain: we could gain no information 

 whatever, to be depended upon. 



At length, a valued and intelligent friend of ours, Henry Christy, 

 Esq., during a short sojourn in Havannah, made the needful inquiries 

 respecting this Bast, and one or two other products of botanicstl or 

 commercial interest, the result of which we have recorded in our Notes 

 upon the Vegetable Products of the Great Paris Exhibition, which will 

 appear shortly in the published Eeports, and from which we make the fol- 

 lowing extract, under the head of the " Spanish Possessions or Colonies. 

 These we said." to be miserably represented, Porto Eico only exhibiting 

 a few unnamed indigenous woods^ samples of Gum Elemi, and fibre oi 

 Banana, Maguev, and Ananas. Cuba ranks a little higher ; but its pro- 

 ductions here exhibited are almost exclusively manufactured articles, 

 and, as might be expected, chiefly Tobaccos and Cigars. We searched 

 in vain for specimens or information relating to the little-known Pine 

 which gives name to the ' Isla de Pinos,' or the celebrated wood called 



* Sabicu/ The origin of this wood is still a vexed question ; Don Eamon 

 de Sagra attributing it to the Acacia formosa of Humboldt and Kunth ; 

 Mr. Bentham, to a new species of Lydloma^ viz. L, Sabicu, Benth. 



* Son bois,' says M. de Sagra, ' est dur et d'un usage tres r^pandu ; 

 on en fait des soulives ou des planchers ; on Temploie egalement dans 

 certains ouvrages de charronage, par exemple dans la construction des 

 charrettes/ This has been a great article of trade with the Cubamtes ; 

 and no less so is a very beautiful substance familiar to us under tue 

 name of Cuba Bast, and long known as the material used for binding 

 the Havannah cigars into bundles. It is a kind of Lace-bark, and of 

 the same nature, being the inner layers of the bark of a tree, almost as 

 delicate, and even more silky than the well-known Lace-bark of Jamaica 

 {Lagetta Untearia), Of late years, it would seem, the merchants of 

 Cuba can turn it to better account ; it has been found by gardeners and 



