243 
known to the natives. I have heard of an instrument by which one 
can easily extract the milk; can you give any help or direct me to 
where I can get a sample? There are many ways in which the milk 
is prepared : first by cutting a coffin-like hole in the trunk of a tree and 
throwing in milk daily until it is full, then the milk is well covered, airtight 
“if possible, and within a month it is quite solid. Of course in the rainy 
season it may take two months before it is solid. This is known as the 
silk rubber. 
The one gathered and cooked in water and whose appearance shows 
white after cooking (although the atmospheric influence causes it to get 
E 
he rubber cooked as npe and thickened by heat directly in 
pot obtains varied prices. Can one improve on these methods? I ne 
of one method, but it is ‘difficult to follow, for one cannot get the fresh 
milk. The custom is to purchase ked milk. The preparation 
I speak of is to allow the milk to remain in cold water (about double 
This is then gathered and put in a bag, which can be hung up for 
perfect draining or the bag put in a box with so many holes for the 
water toescape. This fetches a good, and, I dare say, the best value ; 
but unless one can command his own forest ae fresh milk is hard to 
ge e sample of rubber sent is of the ral preparation cooked 
as brought from the tree. If desirable J shail etd you a two feet long 
log of the rubber tree. For any name appropriate for the tree and any 
improvement on. the e roc Sc the rubber, also- for collecting the 
same, I shall thank you very mu 
I remain s 
~ The Director, (Signed). . C. Orusr. | 
Royal Gardens, Kew. 
'HE RUBBER PLANT. 
The specimens sent by Mr. Olubi led to the identification of the new 
rubber plant as aeu — Benth. Of this plant we had very 
little previous inform 
n May 1888, a eni of seeds marked “India-rubber seeds” from 
Winnebah, Gold Coast, West Africa, was forwarded to Kew by Messrs. 
own to 
Ni and i in i the island of Fernando Po. As tbe seeds were then in 
commerce as a substitute for Strophanthus seeds, it was inferred that 
the high poen they fetched was due to this and not to their value as a 
means of propagating India-rubber plants. In fact, it seems that they 
were never suspected to have any other importance "than that they lent 
themselves readily for the adulteration of SETODAUNEKNE seeds. "Thus 
Mr. E. M. Holmes, Mr. T. Chr isty,? Dr. J. Nevinny,? and lately Mr. 
L. Planchon ! examined the seeds ot Kickxia africana from this point 
1 Notes on false epope seat in Bar. Journ. Vol. XVII (1887) > 904. 
? New Commercial Plants and Drugs, (1837), No. 10, p. 11, and Bg. 7 on p. 10 
3 Kickxia aud Stropha micis, 1 in 7. ist óst. Apoth, 1887, Nos 20, 21, 2 
* Preduits fournis à la peni médicale par la famille des do vite (1891) pp. 
80, 81. 
iz- 
