8 
Kirk, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., late Political Agent at Zanzibar, who during his 
attachment to the Livingstone South African Expedition i in 1859, and to 
the Zambesi aep ae in 1861, obtained an excellent series of specimens 
both in flower and fruit. The Buazé plant is well figured by Richard 
in his Tentamen Flora Abyssinice, t. 10, under the name of Lophostylis 
angustifolia, and by Klotzsch in Peters’s Mozambique, t. 22, as Lopho- 
elie pallida. Both names now give way to that at the head of this 
icle. 
E the comparatively favourable report on this fibre 
received so far back e w nothing has since been done to further its 
utilization in this country. 
ote added 1894 ane the article on Shane! fibre in the Kew Bulletin, 
1889, pp. 222-225, there was given an account ofa fibre used for making 
fish nets forwarded to Kew by the For feign e from Mafeking on 
Lake Ngami. This had been collected by Mr. James Nicolls. Further 
specimens, with fresh leaves of the plant yielding the fibre, showed re 
the Lake Ngami fibre was yielded by Sansevieri ja sulcata. (Art. XLI.) 
II.—OKRO FIBRE. 
(Hibiscus esculentus, L.) 
[K. B., 1890, pp. 229-230.] 
The plant variously known as okro, okra, gobbo, gonia and quim- 
bombo, is widely cultivated in the tropics for its horn-like pods, or seed 
vessels, which are used as a wits vegetable. They are ae 
mucilaginovs, and are made into soups and sauces. The ripe seeds a 
sometimes parched and used as a pubetttats for coffee. The plant is in 
annual herb, with a stout hairy stem from 2 to 5 feet in height. The 
leaves are large, three- to five-lobed, coarsely toothed, with paiio about 
6 inches in length, more or less bristly. The flowers are yellow, with a 
brown or crimson centre. The fruit is pyramidal-oblong, 6 to 10 na 
long, and about į to 1 inch in diameter, with five prominent ribs a 
smoot he spherical seeds are grey or greenish, obovate, and raed 
with fine hairs. 
The Okro (Hibiscus esculentus, L. 3 Abelmoschus esculentus, W. & A., 
is probably a native of India, but it is now naturalised or cultivated i in 
all tropical countries. Vilmorin Aist niskie two varieties in culti- 
vation : the long-fruited green okro. and the round-fruited okro. In the 
latter the fruits are short and comparatively thick, being about 2 inches 
long and nearly 2 inches in diameter, and blunt at the ends rather than 
pointed. There is said to be a sub-variety of the long-fruited green 
okro with pendulous pods. 
The okro has long been known in India and elsewhere to yield a long 
silky fibre, the breaking strain of which, according to Roxburgh, is 
79 pounds dry, and 95 pounds wet. Specimens of Indian okro fibre in 
the useums resemble hemp in colour and texture. It is 
evidently well adapted for making ropes, iiiv, ron sacking, while the 
residual eae could be utilised for paper-makin 
Recent e preparation and use of okro fibre. has been revived in 
both roy ia L United States, where the plant is largely grown 
during the summer months, and also in Cuba, In the Report of Mr. 
