488 FOREST CULTURE AND 
Ficus Cunninghami, Miquel.—Queensland, in the 
eastern dense forest regions. Mr. O’Shanesy desig- 
nates this as a tree of sometimes monstrous growth, 
the large, spreading branches sending down roots 
which take firm hold of the ground. One tree meas- 
ured was 38 feet in circumference at two feet from 
the ground, the roots forming wall-like abutments, 
some of which extended 20 feet from the tree. Sev- 
eral persons could conceal themselves in the large crev- 
ices of the trunk, while the main branches stretched 
across a space of about 100 feet. A kind of caoutchouc 
can be obtained from this tree. <A still more gigan- 
tic fig-tree of Queensland is F. colossea (F. v. M.), but 
it may not be equally hardy, not advancing naturally 
to extra-tropic latitudes. This reminds of the great 
council-tree, I’. altissima. 
Ficus elastica, Roxburgh.*—Upper India. A large 
tree, yielding its milk-sap copiously for caoutchoue. 
Already Roxburgh ascertained, 60 years ago, that 
india-rubber could be disolved in cajaput oil (so simi- 
lar to our eucalyptus oil), and that the sap yielded 
about one third of its weight caoutchouc. This tree 
is not of Guick growth in the changeable and often 
dry clime of Melbourne, but there is every prospect 
that it would advance rather rapidly in any of our 
extensively unutilized forest gullies, and that copious 
plantations of it there would call forth a new local 
industry. Mr. 8. Kurz states that also F. laccifera, 
Roxb., from Silhet, is a caoutchouce fig-tree, and that 
both this and F. elastica yield most in a ferruginous 
clay soil on a rocky substratum ; further, that both 
can bear dryness, but like shade in youth. Several 
other species of tropical figs, as well American as 
