316 DESCRIPTION OF HEMP PLANT. 
large, perio, 2-celled ; cells united by their backs, opening by a longi- 
tudinal slit. Females in a crowded spike-like raceme, with leafy bracts. 
The perianth consists of a single, small, spathe-like sepal, which is persistent, 
acuminate, ventricose at the base, embraces the ovary, and is covered with 
short brownish glands. Ovary subglobular, 1-celled, with one pendulous 
ovule. Style short. Stigmas 2, elongated, glandular. Nut ovate, greyish- 
coloured, smooth, covered by the calycine sepal, bivalved but not dehiscing, 
and inclosing a single oily seed. Seed pendulous. Testa thin, membranous, 
marked at the apex with a coloured hilum. Embryo without albumen, 
doubled upon itself. Radicle elongated, turned towards the hilum, and the 
apex of the nut separated from the incumbent plano-convex cotyledons 
by a small quantity of albumen. 
The Author having for many years been of opinion that 
Hemp fibre might be advantageously produced in India in 
much larger quantities than has ever yet been the case, wrote 
a report on the subject, in the year 1839, which was sent to 
India, and published in the ‘ Trans. of the Agri-Hortic. Soc.,’ 
vol. vii, p. 15. From this he will now make some extracts, 
and then adduce some of the valuable information which it 
was the means of eliciting : 
“The cultivation of Hemp in India obtained very great 
attention from the Court of Directors, and instructions were 
sent to the Governments there to encourage its growth, as well 
as that of other cordage plants. As the natives of India 
employ between forty and fifty different kinds of plants for the 
fibre which they yield, fitted for this purpose in different 
degrees, the subject of investigation was sufficiently exten- 
sive, and received great attention from Dr. Roxburgh.” 
“On the present occasion I confine myself to the Hemp 
plant itself (the Cannabis sativa of botanists), as being the most 
valuable of the whole; and because it is in general erroneously 
supposed that it can only be successfully cultivated in European 
regions, though there is every reason to believe that it is origi- 
nally a native of Asia, and even that its Greek and Latin name 
Cannabis is derived from the Arabic kinnub. It is well known 
to be common in Arabia and Persia, as well as in every part of 
China and of India, and likewise in Egypt and Turkey ; but in 
all these countries it is valued chiefly, if not only, for yielding an 
intoxicating drug commonly calleddhang. In European countries, 
it is on the contrary cultivated only on account of its ligneous 
fibre, so extensively employed in the manufacture of the 
strongest ropes, and of coarse but strong kinds of cloth. The 
wide distribution of this plant throughout Europe and Asia is 
