262 FIBROUS SPECIES OF SIDA. 
annual, growing very tall, often 12 to 14 feet high, growing 
straight, with few branches. The fibres he describes as un- 
commonly beautiful, and rather stronger than Sunn. 
Besides these, other fibres of species of Hibiscus have been 
separated in India, as mentioned in ‘ Journ. Agri-Hortic. Soc., 
vi, App., 3, and vii, 193, though it is not easy to determine the 
plants intended ; but this only proves how much the genus 
abounds in fibre-yielding plants. 
So other species of this genus are similarly employed in 
other countries, as Hibiscus clypeatus and elatus in the West 
Indies; as H. (now Thespesia) populneus and H. tiliaceus, 
already mentioned, in the Society and South Sea Islands; H. 
Manihot in Japan; H. heterophylius in New Holland; and 
, verrucosus in Senegambia. 
Sra is a genus of Malvaceous plants, which like others of 
the family contains many plants abounding in mucilage, and 
others with bark containing tough fibres, employed for cord- 
age in different countries. One species, S. tiliefolia, referred 
at first by Dr. Roxburgh to S. abutilon, is cultivated for this pur- 
pose in China. Some of its seeds were received many years 
ago at the Calcutta Botanic Garden, under the name of 
King ma, from Pekin, in the neighbourhood of which the plant 
is cultivated, for the sake of its fibre. Seeds were similarly 
received a few years ago by the Horticultural Society, and the 
Author saw a fine crop of the plants in their garden at 
Chiswick, which seemed about eight feet high. Some of these 
Dr. Lindley had steeped, in order to separate the fibres, and 
some were sent to Mr. Routledge in the year 1850, in order to 
try in his machine. 
Dr. Roxburgh notices “the fibre of this plant as strong and 
pliable, very silky in its nature, and the plant of very rapid and 
luxuriant growth, three crops being obtained in one year. It 
may be brought into this country at the estimated price of £8 
per ton, which is now about one fifth of the price of Hemp of 
the best quality.” According to Dr. Clarke Abel, this plant 
is preferred for cordage in China Proper. 
S. rhomboidea and S. rhombifolia, the sufet and lal bariala 
of the natives of Bengal, where the plants are indigenous in 
the rainy season. The bark of both, according to Dr. Roxburgh, 
