428 



.same time this American I. suffruticosa got a footing upon the- 

 south coasts of China along with /. tinctoria, became also a crop 

 of the neigh'bourhood of Manila, and would seem to have been the 

 indigo grown by Chinese a little later upon the out-kirts of Singa- 

 pore. And therefore to this date with this, the East had put four 

 species under contribution. 



The Arahs when they started the cultivation of indigo in Ara- 

 bia took for their crop /. articulata — the species which supplied Surat 

 indigo ; and they estaiblished it also in Egypt ; but this particular 

 species did not spread to the upper Xile, where I. arrecfa, Hochst., 

 Avas or ])ecame grown. It may be that the origin of indigo-growing 

 in Africa came from the Arabs; and in any case it is exceedingly 

 proba;ble that ancient Egypt drew its indigo from India and not 

 from the Soudan ; but the cultivation of /. arrecta has become very- 

 wide in Africa; and about 1860 the Dutch got possession of it for 

 Java where it displaced /. suffruticosa, but did not hold its ground 

 for long as a second American species. I. guatemalensis, Moc. and 

 Sesse, came into favour about 1870. only to be ousted, imperfectly 

 however, by I. arrecta coming in again as a consequence of changed 

 methods. 



These alterations of the species in vogue in Java, did not in 

 Malaya extend beyond the Dutch Indies : but in India the Behar 

 industry slowly began to follow suite in adopting I. arrecta under 

 the name of " Java-Xatal indigo." 



Singapore gave up indigo-production in the seventies: the- 

 Philippine islands lost their export in the nineties : but China re- 

 mains growing o^■er a limited area on its south-east coasts for its- 

 own internal consumption,probably both '/. tinctoria and I. suffru- 

 ticosa. The last named is the species of Indigofera cultivated in 

 Kelantan. 



The indigo dye manufactured for the Chinese local markets 

 is sold in paste; and such was that from this species sent by Mr. 

 Parrer, 



It is not possible to see a future in the industry, espeoially as 

 the batik workers in Java who consume a considerable quantity of 

 indigo appear to find the artificial more to their liking; and more- 

 over Kelantan is backward in growing a species now twice super- 

 seded in Java — ^gTowing it moreover Avhen the war had curtailed 

 the sup])lies of artificial indigo. 



The enormous demand for a blue dye in China is met Ijut in 

 part by the use of indigo ; and indigo cultivation seems only to have 

 got a hold in the south-east of the country : elsewhere the blue dye 

 comes from Isatis indigotica. Fortune, the Chinese woad, from Stro- 

 hilanthes fiaccidifolius, Xees (Ruellia indigotica. Fortune), from 

 Peristrophe tinctoria, Nees, and from Polygonum tinctorium , Lour. 

 The second of these is the second of the dyes from the north of the 

 Malay Peninsula with which we are dealing. 



Strohilantlies fiaccidifolius has never found a place in culti- 

 vation outside southern China, Indo-china and the adjoining moun- 



