430 
Messrs. HECHT, LEVIS, and KAHN TO ROYAL GARDENS, 
KEW 
2L TS Lane, London, E.C., 
DEAR SIR Maj - 19, 1897. 
WE have your favour of yesterday ; also a nce of rubber. 
It is equal in quality to the fine Darjeeling Assam, and if it comes 
here exactly like this sample, equaliy strong and pure, it would at 
the present moment se = at 2s. 6d. per lb., and such rubber could 
be readily sold at any t 
Always at toc service, s we are, dear Sir, 
ours, 
(Signed) Tincur, LEVIS, and KAHN. 
Laportea canadensis.—A nettle-looking plant was received last 
year from the Jardin VEL aiu at Paris, under the name of 
penn helen candicans. It was said to afford fibre db aee m- 
qua o China-grass edo ia nivea), or rhea or ramie 
(B. READ. and its cultivation has been zoomia in 
Southern France, Algiers, Egypt, &c. Fortunately, the T on 
arrival at Kew was in excellent condition and in flower. Upon 
examination it was found to be nota species of Bæhmeria, but a 
well-known new-world species, palam canadensis, extending 
from Canada to Florida and Mexico, and westward to the Rocky 
Mountains. The fibre yielded by this plant was at one time 
largely used ; latterly it ate been almost entirely forgotten. In 
Hookers Flora Boreali- -americana, Vol. II. (1840), p. 142, it is 
M 
Later, in 1865, the Abbé Provancher refers 
to it in his Flore Canadienne, p. 516, under the name of Ortie du 
a or Canada Nettle, and adds :—“ Sa culture a été tentée en 
urope pour sa fibre, mais ses eee resis sont encore doutés.” 
It is well known that many members of the nettle order are 
capable of viektnay fibre. Even the common English s stinging 
nettle (Urtica dioica) is a very ancient fibre plant, its inner bark 
affording a tough fibre suitable for many purposes, and used for 
this fibre is in Museum I., Case 102. A series of yarns prepared 
from the same plant, and ies th dae were brought to 
Kew by Mr. B. Gray, of Glenanne, 
In the Deser ‘tive Catalogue F Useful Fibre Plants of the 
World, by Mr. C. Richards Dodge, recently issued by the S POP 
States "Department of Agriculture, the following note (p. 21: 
appears respecting Laportea canadensis:—“The fibre of n 
species, before the introduction of cotton, had an application 
more extensive than at present in Sok bles where, particularly in 
Germany and in more northern c s, they manufactured the 
cloth called ortica (German, M or nettle cloth. 
It may, therefore, be safely assumed that the Canada nettle 
possesses no special merit as a fibre pom von its with China- 
grass or ramie. Further, as it possesses stinging hairs, it is 
difficult to handle. 
