256 AMBAREE, OR HIBISCUS FIBRE. 
seeds are scattered about among other crops on account of 
its leaves. 
In Behar he found it called Kudrum, and cultivated only 
for being made into ropes, and not as an acid seasoning. 
About 2000 begahs were occupied with it. In Bhagulpore he 
found it cultivated nearly as much as the Corchorus. The 
natives considered ropes made of it stronger and more durable 
than those of the Jute; but its fibres are harsher, and, as he 
thought, could be reduced to fine thread. 
In Goruckpore it was cultivated to the greatest extent, but 
always intermixed with the urhur or Cytisus Cajan, and ropes 
made of it were used for agricultural purposes. 
In the Dinajepore district, Dr. Buchanan found it called 
Mesta, but its bark never used for making ropes; the leaves 
only being used as an acid green, the taste being pleasantly 
acid, and not unlike sorrel. 
We find it equaily cultivated in Central and Western India. 
It is mentioned as one of the plants employed for cordage at 
Hyderabad. 
Colonel Sykes, in his ‘ Statistical Report of the Dukhun’ 
(British Assoc., 1837, p. 241), enumerates it as one of the 
plants cultivated in the wet season; and among his drawings 
of cordage plants there is an excellent one of this plant, as 
well as of Agave vivipara, there called gayal. Among dry 
or spring season cultivation, the Colonel enumerates the Taag 
or Crotalaria juncea, its fibres being employed for ropes and 
for coarse canvas. 
In the Madras Presidency, a number of fibre-yielding 
plants are mentioned by their native names, but as these differ 
in every district, and are not accompanied by Botanical 
names, it is impossible to determine to what plants they 
refer. We know that Dr. Roxburgh found Hibiscus cannabinus 
in cultivation on the Coromandel coast, and that a coarse sack- 
cloth was made of its fibres. In Vizagapatam it is called Gunny 
fibre, and coarse sackcloth and rope made of it. So Dr. Ainslie 
says, “with the nar, or tough stringy fibre of the bark of the 
Hemp-leaved Hibiscus, a valuable kind of cordage is made, of 
various thickness.” In a late Minute (19th Sept. 1854) 
by the Madras Government on the subject of fibres, we find it 
stated, that “the fibres of the roselle (Hibiscus cannabinus), 
