34 BULLETIN 536, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



27. Wampi (Clausena wampi) . 



The wampi ( Clausena wampi.) is a native of China. "While a large percentage of the 

 fruit produced by a tree growing at Beretania and Punahou Streets, Honolulu, was 

 found free from attack during June, 1914, certain overripe fruits contained larvae of 

 C. capitata. From 200 fruits gathered during July, 1913, only four adults were reared. 



28, 29. Coffee. 



Coffee cherries (Coffea arabica.2md C. liberica) are favorite hosts of the Mediterranean 

 fruit fly. Coffea arabica is grown in various portions of the Hawaiian Islands, but 

 commercially, at the present time, only on the island of Hawaii. (PI. V.) During 

 the fiscal year ended June 30, 1915, there were exported from the islands 4,363,606 

 pounds of raw coffee beans valued at $651,907, besides the coffee locally consumed. 

 Fortunately for the coffee growers in Brazil and Africa, as well as in Hawaii, the 

 larvae of the fruit fly attack only the pulp of the cherry surrounding the beans or seeds 

 and in no way affect the value of the latter. The chemical analyses of Miss A. R. 

 Thompson, formerly of the United States experiment station at Honolulu, have proved 

 that beans from infested cherries do not differ chemically from those from uninfested 

 cherries, and tasting tests of coffee made from roasted beans by Messrs. L. Macfarlane 

 and Robert Wallace, coffee growers of Hawaii, Mr. H. L. Lang, of the office of Home 

 Economics of the United States Department of Agriculture, Dr. E. V. W T ilcox, for- 

 merly director of the Hawaii Federal Experiment Station, and the writers have failed 

 to discover differences in either the flavor or the aroma. 



The unrestricted development of larvae within coffee cherries does, however, bring 

 about certain losses to the growers and mill owners that are apt to be overlooked 

 except by those best informed. Before the introduction of parasites into the coffee 

 districts cherries were infested, often as soon as they began to turn white from green, 

 in the final ripening process. The larvae, numbering from 2 to 8, were able to become 

 nearly full grown by the time the cherries had turned red. An examination of the 

 coffee cherries as illustrated (PI. V, fig. 4) shows that the beans occupy the larger 

 portion of the fruit. The pulp itself, with its thin, easily punctured epidermis, varies 

 in thickness from 0.04 to 0.14 inch, or is scarcely thicker than a well-grown larva of 

 the fruit fly. Therefore, by the time the cherry would ordinarily be ready for har- 

 vesting the larvae have devoured practically all the pulp, leaving the seeds hanging 

 more or less loosely within a sack composed of the thin epidermis. If the weather 

 happens to be dry, the epidermis shrivels and hardens about the beans and the cherry 

 remains on the branch indefinitely, resembling closely those killed by disease. How- 

 ever, should the harvesting season be rainy, the epidermis decays rapidly and under 

 the weight of the beans the cherry falls to the ground. The writers have been in 

 certain coffee fields where a slight jar to the tree would cause many cherries to fall 

 to the ground, where they are lost. This type of loss necessitates extra pickings and 

 greater cost of labor. Since the successful introduction of parasites the fruit fly has 

 been so reduced, as discussed on page 99, that while cherries are infested in about the 

 same proportion as formerly, the infestation occurs so late in the ripening process that 

 extra pickings now are not necessary and the cherries on reaching the mills during 

 the height of the harvesting season contain chiefly eggs or young larvae which have 

 not had an opportunity to reduce the pulp. Whether these improved conditions of 

 1914 and 1915 will continue remains to be seen. 



For some time after the advent of the fruit fly into the coffee districts, prices for 

 coffee in the cherry delivered at the pulping mills remained the same per pound. 

 During 1912 and 1913 when the fly attack was severe it was difficult to find at the 

 mills cherries which were normally bright red and sound. Practically every cherry 

 that was red was badly infested and its pulp had been consumed, and the floors about 

 thr dolivery platforms were well strewn with emerging larvae. As the pulp only had 

 been destroyed, a pound of coffee cherries badly infested contained in reality many 



