112 



EAST INDIA PLANTS. 



The Specimens noted in the following Letter arc placed in 

 the Society's Repository. 

 dear sin, 

 Ejoo, the fibres I think it more than probable that the Society of Arts, 

 of .the leaves of £ c< d no t .possess any specimen of the vegetable fibres, 

 commonly called Ejoo in the East Indies. I have, therefore, 

 the pleasure of sending you a parcel of that substance, con- 

 sisting of six small rolls, the produce of a small tree for 

 one year. The tree produces, on an average, six leaves 

 every year, and each leaf yields from about four to twenty 

 ounces. It is No, 4- of my first paper on the comparative 

 strength of various vegetable fibres, published in the xxii. 

 vol. of the Society's Transactions. A description of the 

 tree has lately been published by Labillardiere, under the 

 the A-ren^a name of Are?)ga Saccharifera. It is the Anou of Marsden 

 Saccharifera. j n his History of Sumatra, page 77 : in Rumphius's Her- 

 barium Amboynease, vol. i. page 57, and table 13. a very 

 full account of this valuable palm will be found. By Louri- 

 ero, in bis Flora Cochinchinensis, p. 759, it is called Bo- 

 rusus Gomutus. The cultivation of this beautiful, stately, 

 Made into ana< vei 7 useful palm may, I think, with the prospec£ of 

 ropes. great advantage, be encouraged in the West Indies. For, 



besides the above-mentioned fibres, which arc in high esti- 

 mation for thick cordage and cables in India, this palm 

 Affords much fnrnishes. sugar, and abounds, as before mentioned, pro- 

 winq and sugar, bably more than any other, in wine, which, in its recent 

 state, is a pleasant and wholesome beverage, and is also con- , 

 verted by the Malays into ardent spirits ; and when the tree 

 arrives at maturity, the pith of it is one of the varieties of 

 sago meal used by these people in their diet. 



I have the pleasure also of sending you a specimen of a 

 most curious, light,- vegetable, substance, the spreading 

 stems of Acshynomene Aspera, a water plant, called by the 

 Hindoos and Bengalese Solah, and Fool-Solah. It is em-' 

 ployed by them for a variety of purposes, such as floats for 

 fishing nets, artificial flowers, &c. Might it not be advan- 

 tageously employed instead of cork, in making jackets to 

 swim with, and in life-boats, &c. ? At all evetits, the' 

 bare circumstance of making known the existence of such a 



plant) 



A substitute for 

 cork. 



