Rubber 



293 



Government plantation in some years it has been less than 8 oz. per tr.ee, whilst sometimes 

 rising to about 21b.; individual trees have, however, given 20-30 lb. A 'recent estimate 

 of Mr. Gustav Mann, of the Indian Forest Department, places fifty years as the time for the 

 tree to reach maturity, from when^ onward they would probably, yield 10 lb. of rubber at 

 each tapping. 



LAGOS SILK RUBBER 



Lagos silk rubber is obtained from Funtumia- elastica, a medium-sized tree found wild only 

 in tropical Africa. It will often be found referred to as Kickxia elastica, but the true Kickxias 

 are all Malayan, whilst the Funtumias are African plants. The tree occurs in Liberia, the 

 Gold Coast, Lagos, and Southern Nigeria; the Cameroons, and the Congo. There is some 

 reason to believe that it is present also in Sierra Leone, but this is not quite certain. Until 

 quite recently it was thought to be entirely confined to the West coast of Africa, but Mr. M. T. 

 Dawe, in the course of his botanical exploration of the Mabira Forest, Uganda, found it there 

 also, an important discovery materially altering our ideas of its geographical range. 



Funtumia belongs to thesame natural order as the Landolphias, and, like them, is related 

 to our common garden 

 Periwinkle. Its flowers are 

 white or yellow, and the 

 seeds are very characteris- 

 tic, each bearing a beautiful 

 silky plume about two 

 inches long, by means of 

 which they can float 

 through the air like thistle- 

 down, and may often be 

 found travelling about 

 through " West Coast " 

 forests. 



The trees are tapped by 

 making incisions in the 

 bark, "the herring-bone sys- 

 tem described on p. 285 

 being often adopted. A 

 native climbs the tree 

 making the vertical cut as 

 he ascends, and the side 

 cuts leading into it as he 

 descends. The latex runs 

 out and is caught in a 

 calabash, earthenware pot, 

 or other receptacle. It is 

 coagulated either naturally, 

 by application of heat, or 

 by admixture with other 

 latices or juices of various 

 plants. The coagulation of 

 pure Funtumia latex is 

 very slow, but heat and 

 the other methods make 

 the process much more 



Photo by W. H. Johnson, Esq., F.L.S. 



ANCIENT PARA TREE, 



EAST CEYLON 



