DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE. 137 



Calotropis gigantea. Tropical Africa, Persia, India, and Ceylon. 



Chorlsia insignia and speciosa. Argentina and Brazil. 



Cnchlospermum gossypium. India. 



f'Jriodendron anfractuosum. The commercial kapok. AVest Indies, South America, 

 tropical Africa, Java, India, and Ceylon. 



Eriodendron samauma. Brazil. 



Epilobium angustifolium. Temperate North America. 



Ochroma lagopus. Balso. South America. 



See Cibotium menziesii, Puln of the Hawaiian Islands. This is not a "silk cotton/' 

 but it resembles this substance and is employed for the same uses. See also Typha. 



Cotton-stalk fiber. See Bast Fiber, under Gossypium. 



Cottonwood. Populus deltoides. 



Country mallow (see Abutilon indlcum). 



Couratari spp. 



The genus Couratari, belonging to the Myrtacece, embraces a dozen species or more 

 of South American trees, the superb examples occurring in Brazil, along the Amazon 

 and its tributaries, and in countries to the northward, Peru and Guiana especially. 

 The flowers are large and white, mixed with purple in color, arranged in axillary 

 spikes. The fruit is a woody capsule, oblong in form, covered by an operculum 

 which extends in a central axis to the base of the capsule, where the seeds are 

 inserted. The species of the genus Couratari and of Lecythis are very nearly related, 

 differing especially in their fruit, which in the latter is hard and bulky, serving the 

 natives for cups and vases. A traveler in Guiana states that one of the species of 

 that region blossoms about the time that its leaves fall, and that it is covered with 

 thousands of rose-colored blossoms like the peach tree. The timber of these trees 

 is prized for many uses, and the bark of several species has long been known to the 

 South American Indians as yielding a valuable fiber. 



The trees of this genus are particularly interesting as yielding a bark fiber known 

 as Corieza del Damajuhato, from which the natives produce a kind of cloth for the 

 rough clothing of the country. While authorities do not agree upon any one partic- 

 ular species supplying this fiber, at least three are mentioned, and it is probable that 

 all are employed to a greater or less extent economically. Prof. James Orton, in The 

 Andes and the Amazon, states that "the natives make a bark cloth from the Tururi 

 or Curatari legalis, called Cascaria up the Madeira, and from the Llanchama on the 

 Maranon (Napo and Huallaga). The latter tree is 20 inches in diameter and has a 

 white bark. From the Tururi garments 4 yards long are made of a single piece, 

 resembling a coarse woolen stuff, with two layers of wavy fiber. In the manuscript 

 notes received from A. Dorca of Lima, Peru, the species is stated to be u Couratari 

 guianensis, Llanchama, Damajuhato, Tatuiari ; Indians make cloth from the bark." 

 In a recent work on this subject " Corteza del Damajuhato," by Dr. Alberto L. 

 Gadea, Lima, 1894, the above species are mentioned, together with C. tauari, C. eslrel- 

 lenais, and C. domestica, all fiber producing. The common names given by this 

 author to the Couratari bark cloth will be found under C. tauari below, where, also, 

 the descriptions of the fiber of Damajuhato, as well as that from allied species of 

 Couratari is described. 



Couratari tauari. The Tatjary of Brazil. 



Exogen. Myrtacece. A forest tree. 

 Native names. — See descriptive matter below. 

 C. tauari grows to a height of 50 or 60 feet. Its wood and fiber were shown in 

 the Brazilian exhibit, W. C. E., 1893, from the River Amazon, though examples were 

 not secured by me. 



Bast Fiber. — The interior bark is extracted in thin layers, appearing somewhat 



