ALBERT AND GABRIELLR HOWARD. 181 



summed up by Royle.' Watt * lias brought the subject up-to-date 

 and has included in his account of Crotalaria juncea, the recent 

 work done at the Calcutta Botanical Gardens. Royle seems to have 

 been the first to raise the question of the existence of more than one 

 fibre-yielding species of Crotalaria in cultivation in India. It ap- 

 pears that specimens of cordage of excellent quality, and said to be 

 made of Jubbulpore hemp, were sent to the 1851 Exhibition by 

 Messrs. Harton <fe Co., rope-makers of Calcutta. Samples of this 

 fibre, obtained by Royle in 1853, proved to be equal if not supe- 

 rior to Russian hemp and were valued at £30 to £35 a ton. He 

 considered the plant which gave rise to this fibre was Crotalaria 

 teMuifolia. R. This determination seems to have been made on the 

 authority of Falconer,^ to whom a specimen was referred. Wight 

 and Arnott,^ however, regarded C. tenuifolia as a variety of C. 

 juncea, the plant affording the well-known ' ' *Sa7^A^-hemp ' ' of com- 

 merce. That Falconer's diagnosis was incorrect will be evident 

 from Roxburgh's description of C. tenuifolia,^ which is as follows : — 

 "C. tenuifolia R. Perennial, ramous, straight-furrowed, hoary. 

 Leaves linear, sericeous underneath. Stipules minute, subulate. 

 Racemes terminal. Legumes sessile, clavate, many-seeded. 



" A native of Coromandel. In the Botanic Garden it is peren- 

 nial, growing to the height of nine feet, with numerous, slender, 

 furrowed, straight branches, which are again more ramous at the 

 top ; during the cool season each twig ends in a long raceme of 

 large yellow flowers and the seed ripens in two months." 



Jubbulpore hemp, on the other hand, is a tall straight annual 

 with linear lanceolate leaves, while C. tenuifolia R. is described by 

 Roxburgh as a branched perennial with linear leaves and a native 

 of Coromandel. 



Nothing seems to have been done in India on the botany of 

 the plants yielding /Scmn-hemp until 1902 when the source of the 



' Royle, T/ie Fibrous PlanU of Lulia , London, 1855, p. 27L 



^ Watt, The Commercial Produrtx of India, London, lO 8, p. -ll^"'. 



S Proceedings of the Aiiri-Horticitlfural Society of India, April, li^-">l. 



* Wight ana Arnolt, Prod, i, is:.. 



* Roxburgh, Flora Indica, CalcuttM, 1^74, p. '>4fi. 



