183 
The following particulars were furnished ie ‘eign Office 
Reports, 1896, Miscellaneous Series, No. 409, E d 17):— 
“Attention was especially drawn to a plant (Apocynum 
sibericum) which grows wild in the Seminehinsky d 
near the River Amu Daria, and the Ili. The local name 
* Kendir," or “ Turka," and it is much employed by the Visti vol. 
who use the fibre for their ropes and fishing nets. Its chief 
fact that it grows without irrigation. Specimens have been 
shown at various Russian Exhibitions, but the Government only 
took serious steps to procure any large quantities in 1894, and in 
the following year it was used Neatly in the manufacture of 
Russian paper money. 
* With the seed brought back in 1894, sowings were made 
various parts of Russia, and these gave good results at Pina 
where the plants grew to a height of four. feet in two years. Ina 
wild state it reaches a height of six feet, growing best when on 
a hill-side near a river, sufficiently low to ig i by the Ig 
f ds. I enclose a small sample of seed, and some flax from tl 
autumn crop ; that E oithorod 1 in the Toray is of a ; lighter shade." 
seed sown at Kew germinated this summer and yielded 
four Pan. From these it uy possible to identify the species as 
Apocynum venetum, L., of which A. sibiricum is asynonym. e 
Journal Linnean So ociely, xxvi., p. 98.) 
In the Flora of British India, iit, p. 657, Apocynum perdu L., 
is described as an undershrub with slender cylindrical s 
branches. Leaves 2-3 ins. long by 3-1 in. broad, linear eles or 
oblong arbori entire or crenulate ; Denys very slender ; petiole 
very short. Flowers in small, erect, sub-corymbose cymes ; 
bracts subulate, l in. diam., purplish, puberulous. Fruit con- 
sisting of two long, slender follicles. The plant is distributed from 
Southern Europe to Asia Minor, through Siberia and Northern 
India to Minden and Japan 
The following account, with a plate, is given by Dr. J. E. T. 
Aitchison, C.I. E., in the peen of “the Linnean Society, 
2nd Ser. Bot. iii, p. 87, t. 37, on the Botany of the Afghan 
Delimitation Commission ot 1884-85 .— 
Apocynum venetum, Linn.; Boiss. Fl. Or. iv. p. 48 (plate 
xxxvi). 
Badghis: 115, March 5, 1885. Native names: Dumb-i- roba, 
Kundar, Dumb-i-gosalla. Common in beds of sircaiii and in 
marshy localities at Gulran, at an altitude of 2,000 feet. Stems 
about 4 ft. high, springing from a md sat d rootstoc k, and termi- 
nating in a panicle of flowers. The annual stems remain attached 
to the rootstocks, but by the action a the wind they are soon 
dece is their fibrous element, and this is found in bunches, 
havi appearance of artificial preparation. My attention was 
— i them by the seed-vessels still persistent on the battered 
branches. The fibre is a most excellent one, and the wonder is, 
as the plant seems to be common from Eastern Europe to China, 
that it has not heretofore been employed in manufactures. The 
bark of the creeping rootstocks is employed in tanning the leather 
skins used as water bottles 
