CORCHORUS 



CAPSULARIS 

 Jute 



THE JUTE PLANT 



Species. 



Eastern 

 Bengal and 

 China. 



Descrip- 

 tion. 



Fruit and Seed. 



Specific 

 Separation. 



Races. 



Becognisable 

 Forms. 



Colour of Sterna. 



India. In the vernaculars it is the pat, jhut, jhoto, jkuto, etc. When 

 specially used as a vegetable it is nalita or nadika the molochia or me- 

 lochia of the Arabs. The fibre is pat, koshta, etc., the coarse sackcloth 

 woven of it and formerly used by the very poor in Bengal is tat, and the 

 bags made of it are choti or goni. 



Species and Varieties. It may be said that there are two important 

 cultivated forms of this genus and many wild species which are distributed 

 throughout the tropics of Asia, Africa, and America. Geographical 

 evidence is thus very nearly unavailing in any effort that may be desired 

 to trace out the origin and history of the chief cultivated forms : 



C. capsularis, Linn.; Plukenet, Aim. Bot., 1696, ii., 18, t. 255, 

 f. 4 ; Ganja saliva, Rumphius, Herb. Amb., 1750, v., 212, t. 78, f. L ; 

 Lamarck, Encycl. Bot. (under Corete), 1786, ii., 104, t. 478, f. 3 ; Loureiro, 

 Fl. Coch., 1790, 334; Jones, As. Res., 1795, iv., 297 ; Koxburgh, Trans. 

 Soc. Arts., 1806, xxiv., 146, 151 ; Carey, As. Res., 1808, x., 11; Wight, 

 Ic. PI. Ind. Or., 1840, i., t. 311 ; Jacquin, Eclogce PI, 1844, ii., t. 119; 

 Hooker, Journ. Bot., 1850, 91-2, t. 3 ; Bretschneider, Hist. Europ. Bot. 

 Disc, in China, 1898, 35, 239, 440 ; Sadebeck, Kulturgew. der Deut. Kolon., 

 1899, 299-303 ; Jumelle, Les Cult. Colon. (Indust.), 1901, 41 ; Wiesner, 

 Die Rohst. des Pflanzenr., 1903, ii.,.330 ; Semler, Trop. Agrik., 1903, iii., 

 654 et seq ; etc., etc. 



This is the ghi nalta pat of Koxburgh (Fl. Ind., ii., 581) and the 

 narchd of Dutt (Mat. Med. Hind., 1900, 302). The fibre is the true 

 pat or Jcoshtd, the latter name being possibly derived from the Sanskrit 

 Jcosha a sheath and given in allusion to the fibres around the stem beneath 

 the bark. It is recognised by its glabrous leaves, small flowers and sub- 

 globose, not beaked, but warted fruits. As pointed out in the Dictionary, 

 however (I.e. 536), the fruit in the cultivated species of the genus f'or- 

 ctiorns, as in 'Ifrassica, is very variable. It seems, in fact, probable that 

 the peculiarities of the seed are much more constant than the shape of 

 the fruit or the number of its carpels and valves. It is thus highly likely 

 that this, as also the next form, are but cultivated conditions unworthy 

 of the specific positions usually assigned to them. They are at all events 

 each representative of groups of cultivated races that vary in colour of 

 stem, shape of leaf, degree of hairiness, size of flower, shape and number 

 of valves of fruit, etc., etc., until a panorama of specimens might be 

 assorted that would not only break down the separation of capsularis 

 from olitorius but might even endanger the positions of C. trilocularix 

 and C. acntanf/ulus. This much is certain, namely that if specimens 

 be furnished in flower but not in fruit, the two chief jute plants can with 

 difficulty be separately distinguished. 



Mr. Burkill in a report submitted on November 7, 1903, to the Director of 

 Land Records and Agriculture, Bengal, as the result of his critical study of the 

 races of this species, has pointed out that when grown in proximity to each other 

 all these become crossed so freely that in a remarkably short time the progeny 

 cannot be recognised as anything more than mongrels. The flowers are freely 

 visited by bees and appear to be most readily cross-fertilised, though a certain 

 percentage of self-pollination also occurs. Burkill remarks, moreover, that 

 there are hardly any naked-eye features that one can seize on whereby to dis- 

 tinguish the races of jute, except the colour of the stems and leaf -stalks, the 

 time of flowering and the height that the plants attain. The only one of these 

 characters serviceable at thinning time is the first, and this in Burkill's opinion 

 may have led to the development of the special red or green races that are 

 characteristic of certain districts. N. G. Mukerji and B. S. Finlow, who 

 wrote a note on explorations conducted by them m 1904, say there are three 



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