DHUNCHEE FIBRE OF BENGAL. 293. 
Jubbulpore, has observed to the Author, that, when grown in 
the lower provinces, although it attains a great height and 
grows luxuriantly, it is weaker in fibre and the produce smaller 
in quantity than when grown higher up the country. 
The following reports have been made of this fibre by prac- 
tical men : 
“The Jubbulpore Hemp is a very strong article, and would 
take well if it could be sold cheap enough. A considerable 
quantity could be sold in Dundee.”’ In another note it is stated 
to be “of considerable value, and that a good price could be got 
both for it and for good Sunn, valued at £30 and £35 a ton.” 
Some of it sold, in the summer of 1853, for £27 a ton; when 
it was said to be worth £30 a ton, if a little better prepared. 
Duuncuest Fisre, Sesbania aculeata (formerly Aischynomene 
cannabina, Roxb., ‘ Fl. Ind.,’ iii, p. 835, and 4. spinulosa, - 
do., p. 883; Leguminose). 
The natives of Bengal familiarly employ and highly esteem 
a fibre which is known to them by the name of Dhunchee, 
Dhunicha, and Dhunsha. It is produced by a plant which 
Dr. Roxburgh thought was the same as the schynomene 
cannabina of Kénig. This was described by Retz, and stated 
to be a native of the Malabar coast, and that its stems yielded 
a strong and useful fibre, as a substitute for Hemp. Messrs. 
Wight and Arnott, in their ‘Flora of the Indian Peninsula,’ 
consider it to be identical with Sesbania cochinchinensis, which 
they have from China. 
Dr. Roxburgh states that he had not found his plant in a 
wild state, but that, in various parts of Bengal, it was cultivated 
for the fibres of its bark, which form a coarse substitute for 
Hemp. Messrs. Wight and Arnott (1. c.) unite the plant 
described by Dr. Roxburgh with one which is very common in 
all parts of India in the rainy season, the Sesbania aculeata 
of Persoon, and which is called Juyuntiin Bengal, and dhundain 
in North-West India. It springs up in rice-fields, and other 
wet cultivation, during the rainy season. These two varieties 
are thus described by Messrs. Wight and Arnott, under the 
name of-— 
