102 ON THE SOURCES OF THE "CHINA MATTING." 



only be grown near the mouth of the river. "^^ It is cultivated as 

 follows: — In the 5th moon (June) the young shps are j)lanted, and 

 after one and a half to two months those which have grown are 

 taken up and replanted in rows, in like manner as is done with rice. 

 No other care is needed than the occasional weeding of the ground, 

 which is usually manured with "bean cake," the marc or refuse of 

 Soja beans, from which the oil has been expressed, a substance 

 largely imported from northern China as a fertilizer. The plant 

 can be cut in the 5th Chinese moon of the succeeding year, and 

 again three months later ; but if cut only once in the year, in the 

 eighth or ninth moon (October, November) it will attain a height 

 of six to seven and a half feet. In subsequent years the matting 

 plant sends up fresh culms, only requmng to be ke]3t clear of weeds, 

 and to be manured ; but it gradually becomes coarser and more 

 dwarfed, so that, after the lapse of five or six years, it is necessary 

 to plant fresh shoots. After being cut down, the triangular culms 

 are spht in two with a knife and exposed to the sun, the edges in 

 drying curling up and meeting together, so that each piece or half 

 section of the culm appears cylindrical in shape ; these are sorted 

 according to colour and length, and made up into bundles. The 

 paler kinds are reserved for white matting ; those of lower quality 

 are dyed. 



The plant from which this floor-matting is woven, proves on 

 examination to be referable to Cyperus tegetiformis, Eoxb.,+ an 

 abundant weed on the muddy banks and in the shallow creeks of 

 the Canton Eiver, and also common in Bengal. In none of the 

 numerous specimens I have examined, Chinese or Indian, have I 

 ever succeeded in finding properly developed achsenia. 



The following notes on the dyeing and manufacture of floor- 

 matting I were drawn up by Dr. Friediich Hirth, of the Chinese 

 Imperial Customs : — " To produce the different musters, some of 

 which have a very handsome and tasteful appearance, the reeds 



* I am informed that, in the United States, it is customary to clean and 

 freshen up the matting by rubbing it with salt and water. 



+ Roxburgh states (' Fl. Ind.', i. 208) that the " elegant, useful, durable, large 

 mats" used to spread on the floors of houses in Calcutta are woven from the 

 culms of his C. tegetum, which are split into three or four pieces (not two, as in 

 the Chinese manufacture). Xees v. Esenbeck referred C. tegetum, Roxb., to C. 

 corymbosus, Rottb., and Dr. George King, director of the Calcutta Gardens, to 

 whom I am indebted for as full a set as he could spare of Bengal Cyperi, tells me 

 he has no doubt this view is correct ; but the late Prof. Walker-Arnott considered 

 it the same as C.Pangorei, Rottb. Both Nees and Arnott (Wight, ' Contrib. Bot. 

 India,' 88) speak of the latter as having a ' culmus aphyllus,' whilst Kunth 

 ('Enum. Plant.' ii. 57) locates it amongst the ' foliati.' Dr. Thwaites' Ceylon 

 specimen (C. P. HIM) has a single well-developed leaf; hence it seems likely that 

 the latter is referable to C. dehiscens, N. ab E., and is rather Roxburgh's than 

 Rottboell's G. Pangorei. It will be seen that the nomenclature and synonymy of 

 the Indian species of the section Papyrus are not free from obscurity. C. 

 corymbosus, C. Pangorei (? dehiscens), C. tegetiformis and C. tenuijiorus, Rottb., 

 are very much alike indeed. 



+ Onginally printed in the • Catalogue of articles collected by order of the 

 Inspector-General of Customs for transmission to the Austro-Hungarian Exhibi- 

 tion of 1873,' and reprinted in tlie ' China Review,' vol. i., 254: (1873). 



