50 



statement, which is perfectly correct, that there are two forms culti- 

 vated in Ceylon, This authority is, as shown, valueless ; it rests 

 only on the fact that our herbarium as sent to Sir J. D. Hooker 

 contained only one specimen of citronella grass. I have devoted 

 a good deal of attention to the citronella-oil question in recent 

 years, and large plots of these grasses are now in cultivation 

 on the Peradeniya Experiment Station. Full reports will be 

 issued by this Department at a later date. In the mean time, let 

 me assure you that there are two cultivated forms in Ceylon, called 

 Lena Batii and Maha Pangiri respectively. A good account of 

 them is given in Messrs. Schimmel & Co.'s "Semi-Annual Report" 

 for October. 1898. Lena Batii is the form cultivated by the native 

 growers, and furnishes practically all the exported oil. Maha 

 Pangiri is the form cultivated by Messrs, Winter & Son at Bad- 

 degama, and gives a much finer oil, but needs more trouble in 

 cultivation, having to be frequently replanted. The native prefers 

 the Lena Batn because he does not need to replant it. He fre- 

 quently abandons the cultivation when the grass is ten years old 

 or more. The wild Andropogon Nardus, one of our most common 

 grasses, is known to the Sinhalese as Mana, and is distinct from 

 the cultivated forms ; it yields a good oil, but the quantity is 

 smaller. Lemon grass is also cultivated in Ceylon, and we have 

 a considerable quantity Of it upon the Experiment Station at 

 Peradeniya. 



I am. Sir, 



Yours faithfully, 



John C. Willis. 



THE HALFWAY-TREE JAMAICA. 



By the late RICHARD HiLL. 



I visited Halfway Tree on Sunday the 25th November, 1866. 

 When I first saw the cotton tree at the junction of the four roads 

 through the plain of Liguanea from which Halfway Tree receives 

 its name, it had nearly lived out its time. It was of that lofty 

 straight stemmed variety of Eriodendron which originally growing 

 among some clustering trees had overtopped them and had spread 

 its horizontal arms out above them at about some fifty or sixty 

 feet in elevation from the root. Four or five of these arms yet 

 remained with a few scattery stems on which a few straggling 

 leaves vegetated, An age of surface rains rushing to the sea 

 three miles away, had removed all the soluble earth from the plat- 

 form roots, so that they made arched resting places, where the 

 marketers coming from the mountains would rest themselves in 

 groups for they had reached the ' Halfway Tree'. The straight 

 stemmed Eriodendron does not give one an idea of centuries of 

 growth as the short wide-buttressed species, — if it be a species, — 

 does, with its close-leaved hemispherical top, and a thousand feet 



