39 
The botanical identity of the Madagascar rubber-yielding pane 
is obscure. It is much to be M Mr that the French botanist 
do not investigate it "aid clear it 
M. Henri Ries has devotel- a ‘chapter to the subject in his 
" Der Pun d Caoutchouc et à Gutta dans les Colonies 
Finot” "pb. 104 -116 (1898). Of the “ vines ” hestates that the 
most valuable is the Vahy (Landolphia madagascariensis). Other 
forms of the native name are no doubt the Vahea and Vea men- 
tioned ahove. It appears to yield * pink rubber. 
Intisy isa small leafless Euphorbiaceous tree. It is certainly 
the shrub described by Mr. Kingdon. tens he terms the “ large 
bulbous root” is probably the fleshy ste 
Little appears to be known about the hindaja except that it isa 
tree of fifty feet in height. It may be conjectured that it is an 
undescribed Tabernæmontana. 
The late M. Raoul sent to Kew a specimen of what he described 
as the “ bei rubber-yielding plant in South Madagascar,” which 
appeared to = new species of that genus, or possibly a 
MM! 'enhasi 
he Godot is a small tree, perhaps also Apocynaceous, 
DCXLIII.—SKIRRET. 
(Sium Sisarum, Linn.) 
Enquiries have been adäressed to Kew as to the cultivation in 
China and Japan, for the manufacture of sugar, of the skirret 
(Sium M m 
The skirret, which was commonly grown asa Mis Sarees in Tri 
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, is now but o be 
seen, the potato having in a very large measure Ne j^ ges 
contributed chiefly to its neglect. It is a member of the Natural 
related parsnip and carrot, which 
is added a slight Piedi A heir allied Ptol the 
celery. 
Sugar, which gives this sweetness to the skirret, occurs in the 
roots of other species of Sium. S. Ninsi, a plant found in Japan, 
sweet roots used medicinally, and the roots of S. latifolium 
of Europe and North America contain much sugar, here associa 
with a poisonous resin (see Porter in Pharmaceutical Journal, ser. 
9, vii., p. 174). 
he sweetness of the roots of Kium Si en has obtained for 
e 
moor him d these first Mepdelmitite * a sugar resembling 
