

LIME BAST LOOPHA. 33 



Loopha (Luffa fo'tida, Cucurbitaceae). The article of commerce 

 known as Loopha is a fruit obtained from a species of wild cucumber. 

 The plant has cordate leaves, and the gourd or fruit is about a foot long. 

 In India the plant grows profusely and climbs up the palm trees. 

 The gourd when fresh gathered has an offensive odour, hence its specific 

 name otfoetida, or stinking. Botanically the name of the plant is LUFFA, 

 but in the chemists' shops it is sold as Loopha. The fruit is club-shaped, 

 fluted in its whole length, arid tapers obtusely at the end ; it is made up 

 of a several-chambered ovary. 



The fine meshes of tissue of Loopha are repeatedly branched 

 laterally and intercrossed into a fine network, which resembles a fine 

 sieve. This structure has been hit upon as a suitable medium for 

 filtering and humidifying purposes. In textile factories, where the 

 rooms are heated to 80 or 100 F., it is imperative that the air should be 

 changed often ; but when cold air is admitted, or air that has been 

 rarefied, it carries with it particles of dust. The latter settles upon the 

 fibrous material that is being worked, and so disfigures th4 cops, yarn 

 or cloth. To obviate this drawback Loopha has been used, and the 

 cold fresh air is passed through the fine meshes of its tissue, which 

 clears the air of dust, germs and sooty particles of which 'the outside 

 air is the vehicle. This patented appliance, or Humidifier, is the work 

 of Messrs. Hall & Kay, Engineers, of Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire. 



The hygroscopic character of the fruit of the species foetida has 

 given rise, no doubt, to the name of sponge gourd. When the Loopha 

 is cut up into pieces of about the size of the hand and spread out, it is 

 laid on stout pieces of fabric and used as flesh brushes. Up to within 

 the last few years the sponge gourd was only used as an article for the 

 bath, and socks have been made from it. 



Another kind, the Luffa Egyptiaca, is well known as the towel 

 gourd, owing to the tissue of fibres being entangled together after the 

 style of a coarse or a Turkish towel. The practical application of the 

 moisture-absorbing properties of both species of gourds is a matter well 

 worth consideration. The faulty construction of most of the apparatus 

 hitherto used as " evaporators," and for the hygroscopic purification of 

 the air of heated rooms of cotton mills, has caused impure air, though 

 moistened, to be disseminated in hot rooms, resulting in blackened cops 

 and damaged cloth. 



If the Loopha gourd should ever become more successful, a further 

 demand would arise, and the question would then be raised as to whether 

 a sufficient quantity could be procured or not ? This is a natural difficulty 

 that always presents itself when any new fibre industry is taken up. 



It is only doing justice to state that the authorities at Kew are 



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