2 HISTORICAL 



paper on the subject to the Memoires of the Academy, 

 and at the same time he forwarded to the Academy a 

 paper by a French engineer named Fresnau, recording 

 the discovery in French Guiana of another rubber-yielding 

 tree, which was described by Fuset-Aublet in 1762 and 

 named Hevea guianensis. 



The principal rubber tree of South America and of 

 the world, the tree which furnishes the Para rubber of 

 commerce, is also a species of Hevea, and was first de- 

 scribed by J. Miiller as Hevea hrasiliensis {Linnaea, vol. 

 xxxiv. 1865-6). The source of the Ceara or Manigoba 

 rubber of Brazil was not determined until a later date, 

 the first description of the tree being given in 1874 by 

 Miiller, who named it Manihot Glaziovii, after its dis- 

 coverer Dr. Glaziov (jNIartius's Flora Brasiliensis, xi. 

 part ii. p. 443). 



The Central American rubber tree [Castilloa elastica) 

 was first described in 1794 by Cervantes, who published 

 an account of it with an engraved plate in the Mexican 

 publication Suplemento a la Gaceta de Literatura. Cer- 

 vantes named the tree Castilla elastica, but the generic 

 name became subsequently changed to Castilloa, and the 

 latter form is almost universally adopted at the present 

 time. 



The first rubber-yielding plant recorded from Asia was 

 a vine discovered in 1798 by Dr. J. Howison on Prince 

 of Wales Island off the coast of Malacca, which is believed 

 to have been the plant afterwards described by Roxburgh 

 as Urceola elastica. In 1810 Roxburgh was enabled by 

 the services of Mr. M. R. Smith of Sylhet to establish 

 the occurrence of a rubber-yielding tree in Assam, 

 which he subsequently described and named Ficus 

 elastica. 



The rubber resources of Africa were not exploited 

 until a much later date than those of America and Asia, 

 for althougli Palisot de Beauvois described the vine 

 Laiidolphia owariensis from West Africa in 1804, it was 

 not until about fifty years later that the value of this 

 plant and the allied vines as sources of rubber was 

 reali.>^ed. In 1817 Poiret described a rubber-yielding plant 

 of Madagascar which he named Vahea gummifera (now 

 known a.*-' Ixindolphia viadagascariensis, K. Schum.), but 

 in thia case also no commercial development occurred 



