429 



tainous parts of India; but within its area it has quite an impor- 

 tance. It is for instance said in southern China to be prefered to 

 indi-o, both in the vat, and because instead of being a biennial it 

 persfsts over several vears and can ]>e cut repeatedly. It is probal.ly 

 unsuited to the open plains where indigo is grown m India- and no 

 one has had occasion to try growing it upon a plantation scale. 



Obviously the Kelantan and Perak cultivation of this species 

 iS to be reo-arded as the southern limit of the range of this interest- 

 n. crop, it would not be new in those parts,, but like the Kedah rice 

 fields probablv established from at any rate the time severa cen- 

 turies back when settled governments ruled between the mouths of 

 the Irrawaddy and the China sea. 



The third dve plant, Marsdenia tinctoria, K. Br., would seem to 

 show a very different history. Its natural dMribution is from the 

 eastern Himalava and southern China to Borneo and Java , but 

 there is no liistory of its cultivation in northern India and CI ma. 

 It was first described at the end of the 18th century by William 

 Marsden who found it in western Sumatra and sent specimens to 

 England when Robert Brown named the genus Marsderna after him. 

 ft wa brought to notice in Calcutta, and Roxburgh " warmly re- 

 commended an extensive cultivation" of it, after trymg it in he 

 eT I ia Company's garden. But despite quite a considerable 

 hitere ken in\t, whiSi interest is very evident from the corres- 

 poiXice printed in the Journal of the Agri-Hort, cultural Society 

 of India, no cultivation was taken up. 



In 1844 it was shown that the Karens; and sometimes the Bur- 

 mese of Lower Burma grow it: but it is said that they did not con- 

 Sder it the equal of StrohUanthes faccidifolivs. It appears to have 

 £ Iw^i at one time in Java. Elsewhere it does aiot appear to 

 \Z been a crop- and in no place so much a crop as m western 

 Sunia Its cultivation therefore belongs to this part of the voi d 



ma Greater measure than that of indigo and of Strolnlanthes flaca- 



4^1 TO 1j%\LS 



Mr Earrer describes the preparation of dye frmn StroWmvil^e^ 

 as done tlnis: the twigs are cut, steeped i\--^-/!;t;f .^^l 

 iddod the water beaton when fermentation has set m and toe pre 

 dp!tated dve Lbsequently collected. No oil is used, as Fortune 

 says is in the tea districts of China. ^ ^ ^^^^^^^^_ 



ANOTHER 'WET ROT," AND PORTA 

 HYPOBRUNNEA. 



About eighteen months ago_ an old tree f ^^[^^'';^Z 

 Avithm tne coxdJUL , • ■, |^ ■ ^|-^p around was allowed 



