'39 



POISONOUS BEANS. 



The danger of the commonly cultivated Linia bean, Phaseolus 

 lunatus has been pointed out in previous numbers of the Bulletin, 

 the danger lying in the fact that in certain forms of the plant, the 

 beans contain a glucoside accompanied with a ferment (enzyme) 

 which on the addition of water produces hydrocyanic acid. Further 

 experiments with these beans have been made and the results 

 published in the Bulletin des Sciences Pharm, 13, 7 & 8, by M. L. 

 Guignard. It is shown that all forms of this bean contain the 

 glucoside, and produce prussic acid, but the amount varies in 

 different forms of the bean. In cultivated varieties it is scarcely 

 perceptible, in wild or semiwild forms it is much larger and very 

 dangerous to health. In Java beans it ranges from -06 to -32 per 

 cent. Boiling the beans does not make them safe to eat, most of 

 the compound is dissolved but not destroyed and if taken internally 

 the digestive organs and blood containing ferments capable of 

 acting on the glucoside can produce the prussic acid in the body 

 not only the beans themselves but the water they have been boiled 

 jn may prove fatal if taken internally. Red and white Burmah 

 beans only yield -002 per cent, prussic acid. The Council of Hygiene 

 m Paris has on the strength of these discoveries recommended the 

 prohibition of the importation of Java beans and the admission of 

 Burmese beans only on a certificate of origin and analysis. 



RUBBER IN NEW GUINEA. 



Dr. Paul Preuss whose work in the Agriculture of the German 



Colonies 



i well known, writes in a letter from Berlir 



TK P J? ntatl0ns in New Guinea and with very satisfying results. 



kh Ga rubber is valued and P aid for lik ' e first claSS StraltS 

 ber. The Ficus rubber is almost as good and fetches only six 



apound P ° Und leSS " Gasti,loa S ets foUr shi,Iin g s U P t0 five shi,lin ^ :i 



dJ. apping on a !arge scale is to begin this year, and next year I 

 go to New Guinea again. I am astonished on reading what 

 good success you have had in sending these seeds packed in moist 



* rC0al Powder even to Jamaica." 

 Gulr l -°° ks as if Rubber Cultivation had come to stay in New 

 ea ' In German territory at least. 



H. N, R. 



Fruiting of Crinum Northianum. 



Bullet' handsome Crinum:— C. Northianum was described in the 

 ^ the'iL / X ?° 4 ' P- 3 IQ - ^ was sent from Kuchil 

 U J* Botanic Gardens that year by ti 

 number of plants were pla 



