322 ANNUAL OP SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



produced a series of tubers. The following year these tubers were 

 planted, and produced their kind, but the size was larger. Succeed- 

 ing years' cultivation improved both bulk and quality ; and now the 

 produce is regularly grown in the vicinity of Col. Mure's residence, 

 and prized as first class potatoes. 



CHINESE RICE PAPER PLANT. 



IT was long thought that the beautiful and well known " rice-paper " 

 of China was made from the pith of an ^EscJiynoinene : but this has 

 been shown to be incorrect. Two years ago Sir Wm. Hooker pub- 

 lished, in his Journal of Botany, some selections from a series of 

 Chinese drawings, respecting its manufacture from a strange looking 

 vegetable, which, it now appears, must have been a hoax upon Euro- 

 peans. For at length Sir Wm. Hooker has obtained, from the island 

 of Formosa, where alone it is known to grow, some imperfect speci- 

 mens (stems and foliage) of the true plant ; from which is made a 

 figure, published in the January number of his Journal ; and an 

 account is given in the February number. Enough is now known to 

 render it most probable that the 1 plant is Araliaceous ; and it is pro- 

 visionally named Aralla ? papyrifera, Hook. The stems are arbores- 

 cent or frutescent, and are filled with a very large and beautifully 

 white pith, from which the paper is made. 



ON THE TALLOW TREE AND INSECT WAX OF CHINA. 



IN an account of the tallow tree (styttingia sebifera) and the insect wax 

 of China, given in the June number of Hooker's Journal of Botany, 

 it is stated, as exhibiting the vast commercial importance of these two 

 vegetable substances, that in a single stearine candle factory of Lon- 

 don, nine hundred hands are employed, producing one hundred tons 

 of candles weekly, valued at 7,000, from the wax and tallow of veg- 

 etable origin. 



The insect wax is obtained from three different species of trees or 

 shrubs, being an exudation, caused by the puncture of an insect belong- 

 ing to the cicada family, and known in entomology as ilata limbata. 

 In time, this exudation becomes dry and powdery, resembling, " hoar 

 frost," in which state it is scraped off, and " the crude material freed 

 from impurities by spreading it on a strainer covering a cylindrical 

 vessel of boiling water. The wax is received in the former vessel, 

 and on congealing is ready for market." It is worth from 22 to 25 

 cents per pound, and the total product is estimated at 400,000 

 pounds, worth more than 1,000,000 Spanish dollars. It seems to be 

 vet undetermined whether the waxv matter is yielded by the animal, 



* *f ' tf r 



or exuded by the plant in consequence of its puncture. 



The vegetable tallow is obtained from the sfi/ilinf/ia selrifera, a native 

 of China, but which is now fully acclimated in South Carolina, and 

 grows abundantly in the neighborhood of Charleston. Indeed, so 

 hardy is it, and so well pleased in its new situation, that it has taken 



