21 



and would find a very large sale if it could be pro- 

 duced at a remunerative price. There is nothing, so 

 far as I know, to prevent its successful introduction 

 into the market. Indeed, it seems wasteful to allow 

 so valuable an article to remain unused, the more so 

 as it is easily reproduced at comparatively small cost. 

 Besides being a valuable paper-yielding material, 

 the leaves of this plant afford good food for some of 

 the silk-worm family, so that the cultivation of the 

 Broussonetia papyri/era might be turned to a double 

 account ; sericulture being an industry which already 

 engages the attention of the authorities in British 

 Burma. 



25. There is another plant, the Calotropis 

 gigantea,* to which I would beg leave 



ed to the attention ,..,,, . , , , , . ,-. 



of Government. to invite the special attention of the 

 Government of India, as affording one of the most pro- 

 mising fibre-yielding materials ; while the method of 

 disengaging the fibre, as compared with the elaborate 

 processes attending the separation of all others, 

 including jute, bamboo, flax, hemp, &c. is so simple, 

 that the plant merits careful notice, as much on 

 grounds of economy as in consideration of the valu- 

 able quality of its fibre. The cost of production 

 might be materially decreased by substituting 

 machinery for the tedious method of separating the 



* Common in most parts of India: shrub 6-10 feet; leaves stem- clasping, 

 decussate, oblong, ovate, wedge-shaped, bearded on the upper side at the 

 base, smooth on the upper surface, clothed with woolly down on the 

 under side ; segments of corolla reflexed, with revolute edges, stameneous ; 

 corona fine-leaved, shorter than the gynostegium; leaflets keel-formed, 

 circinnately recovered at the base, incurved and subtridendate at the apex; 

 umbels sometimes compound, surrounded by involucral scales; follicles 

 ventricose, smooth, seeds comose; flowers rose-color and purple mixed. 

 Flowers all the year. NATURAL ORDER, Asclepiadaceee. 



