POISONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 615 



purpose. Charcoal for gunpowder is made in Kattywar says Captain 

 Jacob (see Graham's Catalogue of the Bombay Plants, p. 121, 1839). 

 Captain Twemlow mentions that the hill people about Mahableshwar 

 obtain an intoxicating liquor called "Bar" from the plant (Graham, 

 op. cit). The wood is also similarly used says Surgeon-General 

 Balfour. The silky down which caps the seeds is used by the natives 

 on the Madras side in making a soft cotton-like thread. " It is suscep- 

 tible of being spun into the finest yarn for cambric, and has been used 

 for the manufacture of a light substitute for flannel, by Messrs. Thresher 

 and Glennie of London. It is also being tried by Messrs. Cowan 

 & Co. of Edinburgh, as a material for paper " (1885). I quite agree, 

 however, with Mr. A. Smith, when he says that the silky hairs capping 

 the seeds are too short to be used for any elaborate spinning purposes. 

 The inner bark produces a strong, long, silky, tenacious fibre which is 

 not affected by water. Its breaking weight is the greatest of all known 

 vegetable fibres. A three-strand f -inch rope can sustain 552 lbs. as 

 against 407 lbs. of Crotolaria juncea (Sunn), and 224 lbs. of coconut 

 coir. This valuable fibre, as obtained from the inner bark, especially 

 of the young branches, be it noted, is spoken of by Mr. A. Smith, as 

 being capable of bearing a greater strain than Russian hemp. (See 

 Lindley and Moore's " Treasury of Botany," p. 202, Part I, 1870.) 

 The fibre is employed for fishing lines, nets, gins, bowstrings, and 

 even tiger-traps, in places where the plant grows abundantly and 

 almost wildly. No wonder that the specific name of the plant is 

 gigantea, when its fibre can be used successfully to entrap a tiger — one 

 of the strongest and fiercest denizens of the Indian forests, and one whose 

 existence is a terror to the surrounding population, the more especially 

 when he is a " Man-eater !" To me, therefore, the specific name of 

 " gigantea" appears to have been aptly chosen. I am not aware who 

 the originator of the specific name is. I wish some better-informed 

 student of Botany would help me and my readers to find this out.* 



* Since writing the above, I find that Mr. F. Gleadow, who is well known to the readers 

 of this Journal, has published the following remarks in the Indian Forester for November 

 1897:—" As to quality, it is stated that the fibres of both species," {v\z: — Calotropis gigantea 

 and C. procera), " are equally good. That is a statement that I have hitherto taken for truth 

 and have now to suffer certain qualms of conscience because I know the fibre of C. gigantea 

 to be neglected in the Deccan, where it is common, and never suspected the possible reason 

 viz., its uselessness. However that may be, I found the fibre of C. gigantea quite useless in 



