Mat 20, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



793 



THE TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB. 



The meeting of February 24 was held at 

 the New York Botanical Garden, Professor 

 Underwood in the chair; sixteen persons pres- 

 ent. 



Dr. Britton referred to the opportunity of 

 members to become applicants for a grant of 

 fifty dollars from the John Strong Newberry 

 Fund, which this year is available for botan- 

 ical or zoological research. 



The announced paper of the scientific pro- 

 gram was by Mr. Percy Wilson under the title 

 of ' Remarks on some Economic Plants of the 

 East Indies.' 



In the spring of 1901 Mr. Wilson was com- 

 missioned by the New York Botanical Garden 

 to accompany the solar eclipse expedition to 

 the East Indies organized by Professor Todd, 

 of Amherst College, the chief purpose of Mr. 

 Wilson's visit being to obtain collections of 

 native plants and plant products for exhibition 

 in the museum of the garden. Most of his 

 collections were made on the island of Sing- 

 kep, which is a two days' voyage southward 

 from Singapore. This island is about twenty- 

 five miles in length and sixteen in greatest 

 width. Two thirds of it is covered with a 

 dense tropical jungle, the remainder having 

 small, scattered native villages. Various fiber 

 products, starches and sugars, manufactured 

 and used by the inhabitants of these villages, 

 were shown. In discussing fiber products, ex- 

 amples were first exhibited in which a whole 

 leaf or a considerable part of it is made use 

 of. Of these leaf fibers, one of the most ex- 

 tensively utilized is from the leaves of the 

 screw pines, whose generic name, Pandanus, 

 is a Latinized form of the Malay word 

 ' pandan,' a name applied to many species of 

 the genus. In many of the East Indian 

 islands, large tracts are covered by these 

 Pandanus trees or shrubs, growing in such 

 profusion as to form impenetrable masses of 

 vegetation, while species growing singly or a 

 few together abound principally in the vicin- 

 ity of the sea. The latter bear many thick 

 aerial roots, which at a distance have the ap- 

 pearance of supporting the plant in the air. 

 The leaves and roots are the parts of chief 

 economic importance. The leaves are gath- 



ered in large numbers, tied into bundles, and 

 carried by the men to the villages, where the 

 women remove with a large knife all spines 

 from the margins of the leaf and the under 

 surface of the midrib. The leaves are then 

 exposed to fire, after which they are cut singly 

 with a sharp four-bladed knife into strips of 

 uniform width. After several days of soaking 

 in water and bleaching in the sun, each strip 

 is separately drawn between the thumb and a 

 thin bamboo stick. By this treatment they 

 become flexible and can be wrought into any 

 desirable shape without injury to the fiber. 

 Two plants in particular, ' pandan tikar ' 

 {Pandanus Samalc), the mat screw-pine, and 

 'pandan laut' {Pandanus fascicularis) , the 

 seashore screw-pine, are considered as yielding 

 the best grade of leaves for mat- and basket- 

 weaving. Other species bearing larger and 

 coarser leaves are regarded as inferior. Of 

 these, the ' mengkuang ' (P. atrocarpus), an 

 arboreal form, is commonly found in swarapy 

 places. The leaves of this are made into hats, 

 and into large mats which often serve for the 

 entire sides of hoiises or for the covering of 

 carts. Styles and designs in weaving differ 

 in the different islands. In some places highly 

 colored mats with red, green, brown and pur- 

 ple strips interwoven are to be found. The 

 dyes used are said to be chiefiy of vegetable 

 origin. A red dye is extracted from the 

 leaves of the teak, a green from the shoots of 

 the banana, while brown or chocolate color is 

 obtained by burying the strips in mud and 

 water for several weeks. In some regions 

 where species of Pandanus abound, these thick 

 aerial roots are used for corks; sections of 

 these roots several inches in length are beaten 

 out at one end and thus made to serve as 

 brushes. Leaf fibers from the leaflets of the 

 ' nipah ' {Nipa fruticans), a low, stemless 

 palm, are woven into large shingles known as 



Fibers derived from the vascular bundles 

 alone are obtained from the leaf-stalks of a 

 common fern, Dicranopteris linearis. After 

 the long bundles are split out from the stalks 

 they are drawn separately through a series of 

 holes of gradually diminishing sizes punctured 

 in a piece of tin. With the strong fiber thus 



