62 



The minutes of the previous meeting were read and approved. 



Dr. Britton referred to the opportunity of members to become 

 applicants for a grant of fifty dollars from the John Strong New- 

 berry Fund, which this year is available for botanical or zoologi- 

 cal research. 



The announced paper of the scientific progam 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 commissioned by the 

 New York Botanical Garden to accompany the Solar Eclipse 

 Expedition to the P^ast 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 ex- 

 hibition in the museum of the Garden. Most of his collections 

 were made on the island of Singkep, which is a two days voy- 

 age southward from Singapore. This island is about 25 miles in 

 length and 16 in greatest width. Two-thirds of it is covered 

 with a dense tropical jungle, the remainder having small scat- 

 tered native villages. Various fiber-products, starches and 

 sugars, manufactured and used by the inhabitants of these vil- 

 lages, were shown. In discussing fiber-products, examples 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 extensively 

 utilized is from the leaves of the screw-pines, whose generic 

 name, Pandamis, is a Latinized form of the Malay word " pan- 

 dan," a nained applied to many species of the genus. In many 

 of the PLast 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 vicinity of the sea. 

 The latter bear many thick aerial roots, which at a distance have 

 the appearance of supporting the plant in the air. The leaves 

 and roots are the parts of the chief economic importance. The 

 leaves are gathered in large numbers, tied into bundles, are car- 

 ried 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. Each leaf is then exposed to fire, 

 after which it is cut with a sharj) four-bladcd knife into strips 



