4 



SEEDS AND PLANTS IMPORTED. 



Joseph F. Rock, a contributor to these inventories for several 

 years and at one time a collaborator of the Office of Foreign Seed and 

 riant Introduction while collecting in India, in this inventory begins 

 to describe his first collections made as an agricultural explorer of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture. His first expedition to 

 Siam and Burma was made for the special purpose of procuring 

 authentic living material of those species of forest trees from the 

 seeds of which is obtained the chaulmoogra oil used in the cure of 

 leprosy. In comiection with his main object he picked up a number 

 of new and valuable plants, which are described in this inventory. 

 The goa bean, Botor tetragoiioloba (No. 51765), cultivated in the 

 ^lala}' Peninsula, he declares is a delicious vegetable, better than 

 green string beans, and since it has fruited in Brooksville, Fla., it 

 deserves study by truck growers in the South. CoUus rotundifolius 

 (No. 51768), a species of mint, he reports is grown for its tubers in 

 the Malay Peninsula. It will produce tubers from cuttings in five 

 months, but when planted as tubers refuses to produce new ones the 

 first year. Flucourtia i^kam (No. 51772), from Bangkok, he finds 

 is a handsome new fruiting tree, producing fruits the size of a large 

 cherry. Mangifera odorata (No. 51774), with very strong-smelling 

 fruits, which he found at Bangkok, may furnish a better stock for 

 the mango than the mango seedlings themselves. Artocarpus champe- 

 den (No. 51804), related to the jack fruit, according to Mr. Rock 

 is preferred to it by the Malays. The Siamese chaulmoogra tree is 

 specifically Hydnocarpus anthelminthica (No. 51773.) 



From the Belgian Kongo, Father Vanderyst sends in a native 

 legume, Sphenostylis stenocarpa (No. 51365), which forms edible 

 tubers and is cultivated by the natives of German East Africa. These 

 tubers have a flavor similar to that of potatoes, according to Doctor 

 Zimmermann, the botanist who was stationed for years on Mount 

 Kilimanjaro. 



Populus charkowiensis (No. 51381), said to be one of the fastest 

 growing of all poplars and a hybrid between the pyramidal poplar 

 and the black poplar, has been procured from Orleans, France. 



Fresh cassava roots as a starchy vegetable are beginning to make 

 their appearance in southern Florida, but as yet their use is too little 

 appreciated. The cassava is an enormous food producer and has the 

 advantage over corn that its roots store themselves, so to speak, in the 

 soil and do not need to be gathered at any definite time. Mr. Krauss 

 has shown how certain Hawaiian varieties, Manihot escvlenta (Nos. 

 51358 and 51359), respond remarkably to fertilizers and can be made 

 to yield as much as 10 tons an acre. 



The tulda bamboo has been so successful wherever it has grown in 

 central Florida that another Bengal species, Bambos halcooa (No. 

 61361), said to be taller even and stouter than the tulda, should have 

 an unusual interest to the growing group of people who are culti- 

 vating bamboos. 



A tropical plum,P7ww5 hokhariensis (No. 51743), from the United 

 Provinces of India, which, according to Mr. Rockey, who sends it, is 

 a sweet-fruited variety, might have great value for the Southern 

 States. 



From Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, Mr. Allen sends in 

 Andropogon hombycinus (No. 51792), a species which grows in drift- 

 ing sands and will endure much heat and drought. 



