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Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 
April 30th, 1913. 
SiR, 
E the honour to acknowledge receipt of your letter 
No. 382/1913, dated Ist April, 1913, on the subject of two stabeinenta 
made by a Brazilian Commission on the Rubber Industry, viz 
(a) that the rubber planted in the Orient is almost sostaliag 
from seed of a “ white” variety of Hevea brasiliensis ; 
(4) that this variety of Hevea brasiliensis produces a weak rubber. 
2. It is to be presumed that whether it was or was not the 
intention of the parties making this statement to cause a certain 
amount of uneasiness among those interested in Eastern plantation 
rubber it would not be unpleasing to those interested in Brazilian 
rubber if the statement were correc 
3. You enquire whether there is any information from the 
botanical side which would tend either to support or discredit these 
a statements. 
In reply I have to observe that a feature of difficulty is 
Bparted to the question by the use in the report of the Brazilian 
Commission of the term variety without any opportunity of learning 
what significance is to be attached to the term. If the Commission 
has employed this term in a scientific sense we are without any clue 
as to what characters have been relied upon by the Commission in 
distinguishing the three varieties they mention from each other. It 
is further to be noted that the Commission does not discriminate a 
“typical” variety, nor do they, as an alternative to this omission, 
state which of the three varieties white, red or black they would treat 
as typical Hevea brasiliensis. Their treatment of the a 
however, is such as to lead to the conjecture that “ variety ” 
employed i in their report ina colloquial, as opposed to a SeiEBS, 
sense and that the white, he and black varieties mentioned by youare 
in fact the “ seringueira bra nea,” “seringueira vermelha” and 
“ seringueira preta ” Hanon of Brazilian travellers. 
5. Assuming this to be the eae we are epee deer: e Dr. J. Huber, 
in Bol. Mus. Goeldi, vol. iv. p. 639), that the hit and black 
‘seringueiras”’ are Lotulically poaroaly epare ple from typical 
He “byasiliensis while the red “seri gueira’ Bi nea the 
scientific variety of A. brasilensis distinguished by Huber as var. 
stylosa, However, according to e, there are two red 
“seringueiras.” One of these is Bick haters. var. stylosa, 
Huber, and the other is Hevea cuneata, Huber ; the latter is the 
Itaubé of Brazil. Dr. Reintgen (in Tropenpfl. vol. vi. Beih. no. 2% 
[1905], p. 105) has stated that the red variety, or Itaubé, is the most 
important and best known economically ; Dr. Huber on the other 
hand declares that Itaubé yields a product of less value than the 
white or the black “seringueira.” This latter discrepancy may 
indeed owe its existence to ‘the circumstance that there are, as Ule 
points out, two quite distinct red “ seringueiras ” and t at while 
pao: had one, Reintgen we have had the other in view. 
However this may be it is clear that the scientific botanists 
whe are at work in Brazil have not yet been able to come to a 
30401 Cc 
