150 
ives an m X DE € a tree which yields the india-rubber, 
nown in commerce * Colombia Virgen.” ‘This has the peculiarity, 
unli ke all other Pan sources ue this substance, = growing at hig 
elevations, and therefore in a comparatively cool clim 
From the indications furnished by Mr. Robert B. White, and sub- 
sequently by Mr. Thomson, there can be little doubt that the tree is 
one of the multiform varieties of Sapium biglandulosum, a member of 
the family Ewphorbiacee, to which the trees yielding the Para and 
Ceara rubbers also belong. This widely spread and extr emely variable 
nds 
as extreme as are to be met with in the vegetable kingdom. 
And it is probable that its rubber-producing sepe may be equally 
variable. In the West Indies it Semi in forms which are probably 
speci ut though recognised as a eddie in a milky juice it 
has never been regarded i in that region as a source of caoutchouc, at any 
rate in appreciable qualities. 
In British Guiana the species occurs in two forms, which have been 
carefully studied by Mr. G. S. Jenman, F.L.S., Government Botanist. 
fo snown in Carib as 
T ong, in Arawack as Cumakaballi. he examination of the 
eaoutehouc-like product of this tree, conducted at the works of the 
India-rubber, Gutta Percha, and Telegraph Works Co., Limited, at 
Silvertown , through the courtesy of Mr. S. W. Silver, F Ls. were, on 
B whole: ‘unsatisfactory as regards its utilisation for any commercial 
erita as due to the presence of a resinous Herera which 
seriously dotis its characteristic pov es. There can, however. 
be no port Ed doubt as to the value of the Colombian vbi yielded 
from the same species, and this would ake it desirable to give the 
Guiana tos a fresh trial, M. Sagot, the well known Guianan botanist, 
to whom Mr. Jenman's specimens were submitted, knew nothing of the 
eaoutehouc-producing properties of the species beyond the fact that the 
MEME of the West Indies used the sap as a bird-lime for catching 
' Inpa Orrio to Rovar Garpens, Kew. 
India vb Whitehall, S.W., 
Su, January 26th, 1889. 
I am directed by the Secretary of State for India i in Council to 
forward, for vour information, a copy of a correspondence on the subject 
of a roposal made by Mr. Robert omson, of Bogota, in n connexion 
with the introduction to India of the species of Hevea [Sapium] which 
produces the rubber known as the * Colombia Virgen 
kie. will cme erve that the Government of India are desisowé that 
may wish to make on the MS im 
I have, & 
_ The Director, (Signed) J. a GODLEY. 
Royal Gardens, Kew, 
