CHINA-GRASS SUBSTITUTES 



BCEHMERIA 



VILLEBRUNEA 

 INTBGRIFOLIA 



plant is cut in October and sun-dried ; when brittle it is beaten and the fibre 

 separated. " Seeing it stated that there was considerable labour required in 

 cleaning the fibre, I made particular inquiries on this head ; as far as I could 

 learn, there is no greater trouble in cleaning the fibre of the Urtica, when merely 

 dried, than is experienced with the hemp of the hills which is not retted in 

 water." The fibre is said to be employed for making ropes. [Cf. Hanausek, 

 Micro. Tech. Prod. (Winton and Barber, transl.), 1907, 88-9.] 



Fibre. 



D.E.P., 



vi., pt. iv., 

 239-43. 

 Risa or 

 Wild-rhea 

 of Assam. 



Mesakhi Fibre. 



Deccan. 



Bombay 

 Wild-rhea. 



San-Then. 

 Semi-cultivated. 



Natural 

 Habitat. 



Various 

 Wild-rheas. 



Villebrunea integrifolia, Gaud. ; Agri. Ledg., 1898, No. 15, 

 108-19, and pi. ; RISA FIBRE. This small tree or bush is met with on 

 the Eastern Himalaya to Assam, the Khasia hills, Sylhet, Manipur, 

 Chittagong, and right across to the other side of India ; on the Deccan 

 Peninsula from the Konkan south wards; and lastly in the Andaman Islands. 

 It is the bon (wild) riha of Assam, also ritza, risa or ree, jutta, bon-kotJcora, 

 lukoi or lukoikhun, lipic or lipiah, kaphitki. 



History. It affords both the red and the white fibre made known 

 by Hannay in 1850 under the name of mesakhi. In fact Dalton 

 affirmed years ago that Hannay's mesakhi was the same as his bon 

 riha. Royle suspected Dalton to be correct and I have little or no 

 hesitation in saying that he was so, though it is curious that none 

 of my correspondents in Assam or on the eastern frontier anywhere 

 have sent me either the plant or the fibre under the name mesakhi, 

 nor was that name mentioned to me during any of my numerous 

 explorations on the Assam frontier. Although fairly plentiful in the 

 Deccan it does no.t seem to have a vernacular name, nor apparently is 

 it known to afford a useful fibre by the people of Western India. During 

 a brief tour in Coorg and the Wynaad some short time ago I personally 

 endeavoured to learn something about this plant. It was found plentiful 

 in the lower damp valleys near the cardamom plantations, but no one 

 seemed aware of its being of any value. Debregeasia relutina was 

 pointed out as the only known wild fibre plant. Subsequently one 

 writer, in response to my account of Villebrunea (Agri. Ledg., I.e.), 

 affirmed that wild-rhea was plentiful in Salsette and the fibre regularly 

 exported up the Persian Gulf, but on being asked for a sample, sent a 

 plant which was neither rhea nor any of the rhea-substitutes, thus once 

 more demonstrating to what extent the bugbear ban- (wild) rhea has 

 obstructed the natural development of India's fibre resources. 



A botanical specimen of the present plant was sent from Assam to the 

 Herbarium, Royal Botanic Gardens, Calcutta, by Jenkins early in the 'fifties. 

 On the label of that specimen is recorded the following " This is the ban- 

 rheea from which the China-grass cloth fibres are prepared." I mention this 

 circumstance as of historic value since it proves that the so-called wild-rhea of 

 the early Assam investigators and the bon (ban) rhea pointed out to me on numer- 

 ous occasions, during explorations in Assam and across the north-eastern 

 frontier into the country of the Mikirs, Nagas, Singphos, Jabakas, Manipuris 

 and other tribes, is the self-same plant of which so much had been said fully half 

 a century ago. In the country indicated the plant is indigenous, but so far as 

 I could discover, is nowhere systematically cultivated though doubtless en- 

 couraged to grow and even planted along embankments, roadsides and other 

 suitable situations with a view to affording a ready supply of fibre. In its 

 purely wild habitat it frequents damp glades near streams, though with its 

 roots well above water-level. Because of its being an indigenous plant and 

 called ban- (wild) rhea there arose the very mistaken notion that it was the source 

 of the cultivated rhea, and still more perniciously the idea that rhea fibre could 

 be procured in India from a wild source for little more than the cost of collection, 

 and further that all that was necessary to secure a never-failing supply was to 

 plant out waste lands with the wild rhea. I have already fully disposed of these 

 absurd notions and need hardly repeat that the wild-rhea of Burma is tUrm-ainia, 



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