ON THE ISLAND OF SOCOTKA. 489 



a small tree bearing a fruit like a pomegranate, but instead of having the 

 double row of carpels characteristic of the true Punica gravahim, there is but 

 a single whorl. Can this then be the primitive type of the Pomegranate ? 

 Another morphologically interesting plant is a Menisperm, a Cor.ctdus, 

 which differs from the ordinal type in being a hard erect undershrub, with 

 cladodes and short spiny branches. 



Gum and resin-producing plants are numerous. The most interesting 

 of these is the dragon's-blood tree, Draccena Ginnabari. The dragon's- 

 blood of commerce at the present time is, as is well known, the product 

 of Calamus Draco of Sumatra. But the Socotran gum is the old Kivvajpapi 

 mentioned by Dioscorides. It is known on the island as ' edah'; amongst 

 the Arabs it is ' katir.' The plant is endemic, nearly allied to the 

 D. Draco of TeneriiFe. From the other gum-producing species, D. Ombet 

 of Abyssinia and D. schizantha of Somali-land, of which we have as yet 

 but imperfect knowledge, it is apparently quite distinct. The gum exudes 

 in tears from the stem of the tree, and is collected after the rains ; the 

 gatherer chipping off the tears into goat-skins. There are three forms in 

 "which the gum is exported. Of these ' edah amsello,' — the tears as they 

 exude from the tree — is the purest and most valuable form ; 2|- lbs. fetch 

 one dollar. The second-best kind is called ' edah dukkah.' It consists 

 of the small chips and fragments of the tears which have been broken 

 off in separating the gum-tears from the tree, or by attrition. It sells 

 at one dollar for 4 lbs. The cheapest is the ' edah mukdehah,' which 

 brings a dollar for 5 lbs., and is very impure. It is in the form of small 

 flat-sided masses, and consists of fragments of the gum and refuse of the 

 gatherings melted together into a flat cake, and then broken up into 

 smaller portions. 



Another most important gum-producing plant on the island is Aloe 

 Pei~ryi, which yields the ' Socotrine Aloes ' of commerce. The gum is 

 known as 'tayef by the natives; the Arabs call it ' sobr.' Although 

 this kind of nloes has been so long known, and has the reputation of being 

 finer than either Barbadoes or Cape aloes, it is only within the past few 

 years that the character of the plant has been made known. It grows 

 abundantly on the island, especially on the limestone plateaux. The 

 collection of the gum is a very simple process, and can be accomplished 

 at any season. The collector scrapes a slight hollow on the surface of 

 the ground in the vicinity of an aloe-plant, into which he depi'esses the 

 centre of a small portion of goat-skin spread over the ground. The 

 leaves of the aloe are then cut and laid in a circle on the skin, with the 

 cut ends projecting over the central hollow. Two or three layers are 

 arranged. The juice, which is of a pale amber colour with a sweet, 

 slightly mawkish odour and taste, flows from the leaves into the goat- 

 skin. After about three hours the leaves are exhausted ; the skin 

 is removed from beneath them, and the contained juice transferred to 

 a mussock. Only the older leaves are used. The juice thus collected is 

 of a thin watery character, and is known as ' tayef rhiho,' or watery 

 aloes. In this condition it is exported to Muscat and Arabia, and sells for 

 three dollars the skin of 30 lbs. Bj- keeping, however, the aloes changes 

 in character. After a month the juice gets, by loss of water, denser and 

 more viscid; it is then known as 'tayef gesheeshah,' and is more 

 valuable — a skin of 30 lbs. fetching five dollars ; whilst in about fifteen 

 days more — that is, about six weeks after collection — it gets into a 

 tolerably hard solid mass, and is then ' tayef kasahul,' and is worth 



