NOTES ON GUTTA AND CAOUTCHOUC 



IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. 



BY Me. H. J. MURTON, 



Supt. Botanical Gardens Singapore. 



Having so recently as last December given the results of my 

 Investigations into the origin of Malay G atlas and Rubbers in a 

 Report to the local Government, I may perhaps be accuse J of 

 iteration in returning to the subject so soon ; but as the matter 

 is one of increasing importance, and as greater publicity will be 

 ensured, and thereby discussion invited, through the pages of the 

 Society's Journal, I have been induced to give the following re- 

 sume of what I have hitherto been able to learn about them. 



First of all it is necessary to distinguish here between Gutta 

 Percha and Caoutchouc — producing orders. 



The trees producing Gutta Percha are all members of the 

 order Sapotaeea, a family which includes many species useful to 

 man, the best known in the Straits being perhaps the Chiko 

 (Sapota Acras.) 



The Gutta-producing trees are confined to the genus Isonandra, 

 which is limited to 6 species by the authors of the " Genera Pian- 

 tarum/' Isonandra-Gutta is the oldest known species and yields 

 what is known in commerce as Gutta Percha in local parlance 

 Gutta Taban. 



This tree is occasionally met with in Singapore and in Johor 

 in the Pulai hills, and I have met with it in Perak on Gunong 

 Meru, Gunong Sayong, Gunong Panjang*, Gunong Bubo, Gu- 

 nong Hijau and Bujang Malacca, where large trees of 80 to 120 

 feet are met with, but owing to the reckless way in which the 

 Gutta is collected, it is fast disappearing, and every succeeding 

 year the collectors are obliged to go further from their kampongs 

 in search of it,. 



The mode of collecting the milk is as follows. A tree not less 

 than 3 feet in circumference at three feet from the ground is se- 

 lected, the larger the tree the greater the quantity of Gutta ob- 

 tainable, it is then cut down at 5 or 6 feet from the ground, and 

 as soon as it is felled the top is taken off where the principal stem 

 is about 3 or 4 inches in diameter ; this the natives say causes the 

 trunk to yield a larger quantity of milk; it is then ringed at in- 

 tervals of 5 to 15 inches with polo's, and the milk collected in co- 



