SMALL STOVE-HOUSE 109 



Peppers are grown both in the Small Stove and in the 

 Palm House. Piper nigrum is an Indian climber, which 

 yields both black and white Pepper ; the former being the 

 unripe berries, the latter the ripe fruit, from which the rind 

 has been removed after soaking in water. Nearly half of our 

 imported pepper, about 9,000,000 lb., comes from the Straits 

 Settlements. 



P. methysticum has a horse-radish-like root, cultivated in the 

 Pacific Islands for the preparation of kava, a slightly narcotic 

 liquid, which tastes like soapsuds and is good for quenching 

 thirst. 



P. porphyrophyllum and Peperomia diaphanoides, metallica, 

 and resedaeflora are all grown. 



Klugia notoniana (Gesneraceae) was brought by Professor 

 Farmer from Ceylon in 1892. 



A plant of exceptional interest is the Rubiaceous Myrmecodia 

 beccarii, which lives in Malaya, in association with a standing 

 army of ants, which it provides with adequate lodging in 

 return for defensive services. Another instance of such a 

 symbiosis is afforded by the Buckthorn Acacia growing in the 

 Palm House, but in that case the plant provides board as 

 well, for its defenders. 



The following Stove plants of economic importance have 

 been grown in one or other of the houses, and if they are not 

 in the collection at any one time, their places are probably 

 filled by plants of as great, if not greater, interest : 



Anona muricata (Anonaceae), bearing the succulent West 



Indian fruit called the Sour Sop. 



Bombax malabaricum (Malvaceae), an Indian large soft- 

 wooded tree of no great worth. From its fibrous 

 bark, ropes can be made, and the gummy exudations 

 are employed in Indian medicine. The silk cotton 

 covering the seeds is used for stuffing cushions. 

 Cinnamodendron rubrum from Brazil has a bark re- 



