26 COMMEBCIAL BOTANY. 



the Report of the Director of the Botanical Department of 

 Jamaica in 1883, and again inr 1884, and the whole subject 

 is fully treated of, together with reports on its probable 

 usefulness, in the Kew Bulletin, No. 24, for December, 1888; 

 from this report it seems that the rubber will probably 

 prove to be of considerable commercial value, and the notice 

 thus taken of it may perhaps lead to an extensive cultiva- 

 tion of the plant. 



Other rubber-yielding plants of minor importance have 

 attracted the attention of the Kew authorities during the 

 past ten years, as Vrceola esculenta, at one time known as 

 Chavannesia esculenta, first noticed as a rubber-yielding 

 plant by Mason, in Burma, in 1860; Willughbeia edulis or 

 W. martabanica, a Malayan plant; and Choneinorpha macro- 

 phylla, a large scandent evergreen shrub of the Andamans, 

 which is stated to yield a considerable quantity of caoutchouc. 



We have gone thus fully into the sources of caoutchouc 

 in consequence of its very great and increasing commercial 

 importance. As a proof of this we may quote from the 

 annual report for 1886 of one of the principal brokers in 

 the trade, that " The world's consumption of all kinds is 

 steadily increasing," and we may further quote the following 

 statistics of the imports and value of raw and manufactured 

 rubber for the past seven and five years respectively : — 



Raw Caoutchouc. 

 1883 - 229,101 owt. value £3,652,817 



