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Curculigo Fibre. — The common jungle plants Curculigo recur- 

 vata and C. latifolia and villosa known to the Malays as Lumbah, 

 produce from their leaves a strong fibre used by the Dyaks for cloth 

 and fishing nets. The plant is generally to be found in shady 

 places, and is known by its tufts of large flaccid lanceolate leaves, 

 plicate and dark green, usually more or less pubescent beneath. 

 The flowers are yellow, borne in a tuft at the base of the leaves, 

 sessile in C. latifolia and villosa and borne on a longer or shorter 

 peduncle in C. recurvata. The latter species is the biggest and its 

 leaves are four feet and a half long (exclusive of the stalk which may 

 be two . feet long), and eight inches across the middle. The 

 leaves steeped in water took fourteen days to soak before the soft 

 parts of the leaves could be washed away, after which it could 

 easily be rubbed off by hand. The leaves seem too flaccid to work 

 by machinery. Lumbah fibre has never come into the market so far 

 as I know. It is, in fact, rather troublesome to make, as owing to 

 the flaccidity of its leaves it cannot be worked by any of the 

 ordinary machines, and is always extracted by hand. The leaves 

 are first soaked in water and then beaten to get rid of the cellular 

 substance between the fibres. 



I planted some years ago a bed of C . recurvata, in full sun in good 

 soil in order to see whether the plant would grow and give good- 

 returns under that treatment, but the plant did not seem to like full 

 exposure to the sun. It grew steadily, but the leaves were short, 

 and not very abundant. Should a reasonable price be obtained for 

 this fibre, it might be worth while getting it collected by natives, 

 and also planting it in dense shade, or perhaps better along the jun- 

 gle edges, where it seems to grow very fine and strong. It requires 

 no care under these circumstances and can look after itself very 

 well. 



Experiments are being made with it at the Botanic Gardens, both 

 in retting the leaves in water and also by splitting the leaves up and 

 drying it so as to form perhaps a substitute for Raphia bast for 

 which the demand at present is much in excess of the supply. 



Bishop Hose, who knows the plant well in Sarawak, tells me 

 that the Dyaks there use the fibre in a very curious way. It is 

 water-proof, and the cloth-weavers twist the Lumbah fibre round 

 the threads of the cloth they do not wish to be dyed by any given 

 colour, and after the cloth has been dipped in, say, red dye, they take 

 it out and remove the Lumbah fibre so that the hitherto uncoloured 

 threads may be dyed in blue or other colour, by dipping the cloth 

 again in the latter dye. 



Other tribes weave the fibre into cloth. I am not certain which 

 species the Dyaks use in this way, but it is probably C. recurvata. 



TILE POTS FOR CASUARINA SEEDLINGS. 



In Mr. Hudson's article on Casuarina cultivation he describes 

 the tile pots he used, and now writes a suggestion which may be 



