AGRICULTURAL BOTANY. 259 



expensive culture. The rocky dells and worthless hillsides of Hampden and Berkshire coun- 

 ties in Massachusetts, yield, or if properly kept down would yield, all the sumach that the 

 entire State would use with all her morocco and cloth manufacture ; and could be cut and 

 cured by berry-picking school-boys. I did it before I was old enough to be of any service 

 in working a ship to import it. But nine-tenths of the population, whose children industri- 

 ously pick blackberries and whortleberries to buy straw hats and school-books, are not 

 aware that sumach is of any earthly use, and would gladly avail themselves of its profit, if 

 informed. 



"It should be cut just before frost comes, and cured like corn-stalks, and when dry cut by 

 means of a straw-cutting machine, leaves, sticks, and all, and put into sacks for market ; or 

 it might be ground fine in a bark-mill. If cut close to the ground, several sprouts will grow, 

 four feet high, from the stump in a season. This is the sumach of commerce." 



The Rice-paper Plant of China. 



THE following description of the celebrated rice-paper plant of China, is derived from a 

 recent article by Mr. Fortune : 



" In April, 1854, the steamer in which I was a passenger dropped her anchor a little way 

 up one of the rivers on the north-east part of Formosa. As this was my first visit to this 

 fine island, and as I knew we had only a short time to stay, I lost no time in going on shore. 

 Before leaving the vessel I had been examining with a spy-glass some large white flowers 

 which grew on the banks and on the hillsides, and I now went in that direction, in order to 

 ascertain what they were. When I reached the spot where they were growing,, they proved 

 to be very fine specimens of Lilium japonicum the largest and most vigorous I had ever seen. 

 As I was admiring these beautiful lilies, which were growing as wild as the primroses in our 

 woods in England, another plant of far more interest caught my eye. This was nothing less 

 than the rice-paper plant the species which produces the far-famed rice-paper of China, 

 named by Sir W. Hooker Aralia papyrifcra. It was growing apparently wild ; but the site 

 may have been an old plantation, which was now overgrown with weeds and brushwood. The 

 largest specimens which came under my notice were about five or six feet in height, and from 

 six to three inches in circumference at the base, but nearly of an equal thickness all up the 

 stem. The stems, usually bare all the way up, were crowned at the top with a number of 

 noble-looking palmate leaves, on long foot-stalks, which gave to the plant a very ornamental 

 appearance. The under-side of each leaf, its foot-stalk, and the top part of the stem, which 

 was clasped by these stalks, were densely covered with down of a rich brown color, which 

 readily came off upon any substance with which it came in contact. I did not meet with any 

 plant in flower during my ramble, but it is probable the plant flowers at a later period of 

 the year. The proportion of pith in these stems is very great, particularly near the top of 

 vigorous-growing ones, and it is from this pure white substance that the beautiful article 

 erroneously called rice-paper is prepared. The Chinese call this plant the Tung-tsaou. What 

 it was, or to what part of the vegetable kingdom it belonged, was long a mystery to botanists, 

 who were oftentimes sadly misled by imaginary Chinese drawings, as some of those which 

 have been published will clearly show, now that our knowledge has increased. 



" The Tung-tsaou is largely cultivated in many parts of the island of Formosa, and with rice 

 and camphor forms one of the chief articles of export. Mr. Bowring, who read a paper upon 

 the rice-paper plant^ before the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, informs us that 

 the Canton and Fokien provinces are the chief consumers, and that the town of Foo-chow 

 alone is supposed to take annually not less than $30,000 worth of this curious production. 

 The cheapness of this paper in the Chinese market, as Mr. Bowring justly remarks, is evi- 

 dence of the abundance of the plant in its place of growth, and more especially of the cheap- 

 ness of labor. ' That one hundred sheets of this material, (each about three inches square,) 

 certainly one of the most beautiful and delicate substances with which we are acquainted, 

 should be procurable for the small sum of \\d. or l$d., is truly astonishing; and when once 

 the attention of foreigners is directed to it, it will doubtless be in considerable request among 

 workers in artificial flowers in Europe and America, being admirably adapted to their 



