23 
pp. me ane following is the most recent information with 
regard to 
pemacr from og Annual Report on Mauritius and Rodrigues 
for 1897, p. 2 
The cultivation a has been extended, and produce of 
excellent quality has nee put on the market in limited supplies. 
ile the quality is sufficiently good to enable it to nn on 
the English market, the scale on which it has been produced has 
not been sufficiently Jarge to show whether the cost of spp os 
will permit of exporting it profitably. 
Coffee-leaf Disease in Zanzibar.—T'he occurrence of this fungus- 
parasite in German East Africa was recorded in the Kew Bulletin 
for 1894 (p. 412). According to The Shamba: Journal of Agri- 
culture for Zanzibar, September, 1898, it has now made its 
appearance in Zanzibar. The statement, though not improbable, 
has not -— verified, as far as is known, by a scientific 
examination 
* Some of the en coffee trees at Mbweni bear the unmis- 
takable stamp of the well-known coffee-leaf disease (Hemileia 
vastatrix). The disease is a fungus which first attacks the under 
side of the leaves causing spots or blotches at first yellow but 
subsequently turning black. These blotches are, on examination, 
found to be covered with a pale, orange-coloured dust or powder 
which easily rubs off. The blotches gradually increase in size 
till at last they have deine over the leaves, which then drop off, 
leaving the trees in a short time quite bare, i in which state they 
at whi may 
from Ceylon, but as "a we know this is the first actual 
appearance of the disease in teilten. The Liberian species is 
not supposed to be subject to its attacks, and this makes its 
appearance at Mbweni all the more interesting. Otherwise the 
trees nere show a most robust and healthy growth in spite of dry 
weath 
Fungus-gamboge.-Zopf gives this name (Bot. Zig., 1889, p. 53), 
to a yellow substance obtained from Polyporus hispidus, "Prise, 
readily soluble in ether and alcohol; it is dissolved with the 
formation of a red colour in concentr. trated nitrie or sulphuric acid, 
t 
addition of water. The colouring matter is abundant in the cell- 
walls, cell-contents, and also as an excretion on the surface of the 
xc ime Polyporus hispidus is a common fungus, and could 
obtained in Mbit ue should fungus-gamboge prove to possess 
um economie value, 
