35 
XIV.—MANGABEIRA RUBBER. 
(Hancornia speciosa, Gomez) 
[ K.B., 1899, pp. 185-190.] 
Kew Reports .— 
Hancornia speciosa.—Our attention having been drawn to this 
lant as a source of Mangabeira rubber, steps were taken to 
obtain, through correspondents, a supply of seeds. These we 
course : i 
Collins, Report on Caoutchouc, pp. 23, 24). The rubber appears 
be of good quality, and the tree has also the merit of producing 
in colour, speckled with red. The fruit, in fact, in Pernambuco, 
is more valued than the caoutchouc. 
I extract the following information from Consul Bonham’s 
lumps of rubber are then placed in the sun, after which it is sent 
to the market; from this defective mode of preparation a great 
loss of weight afterwards occurs, frequently as much as 40 to 
per cent. some say even more." (1880, pp. 47, 48.) 
A quantity of good seeds of this plant (Hancornia speciosa) 
were sent to Kew by Mr. C. Craven, of Pernambuco, and were 
distributed among the following Botanic Gardens :—Brisbane 
Calcutta, Ceylon, Demerara, Singapore, Java, and Jamaica. The 
seeds sown at Kew germinated freely, but owing to damp the 
The following detailed account of the plant, and of the rubber 
obtained from it, is translated from a paper by Professor O. 
rburg, in Der T'ropenflanzer, Zeitschrift für Tropische Land- 
wirthschaft, iii., p. 147 :— 
“ Mangabeira rubber is the product of Hancornia speciosa, a 
tree of the Natural Order Apocynaceae, found in those dry 
25871 C2 
