39i 



From Low S letters in 1877 and 1878, one gathers that these plants 

 were the only ones he possessed then, and the Ceylon cuttings are 

 not even alluded to. It is probable therefore that they failed 

 The seeds sent in 1882, were, without doubt, those of the Singapore 

 garden trees. Some of the original trees in the Singapore gardens 

 sent from Kew still exist, and from them were derived a large part 

 of the younger trees which have supplied so many seeds to the 

 Malay Peninsula. In 1888, 1 1,000 seeds were obtained from Ceylon 

 sent loose in gunny bags, and a large proportion germinated. But 

 by that year rubber seeds had been distributed over the Peninsula 

 largely from the original trees and their descendants ; so that as 

 explained previously, the greater part of the Para rubber trees in 

 the Malay Peninsula were derived from the plants sent to the 

 Botanic Gardens, Singapore, from Kew. However, it must be admit- 

 ted that the seeds sent from Ceylon in 1888 have been very useful 

 in helping to stock the Peninsula and other parts of the world 

 1 at e 1 y . — Edito r . 



RUBBER NOTES. 



In the India rubber world of September 1st, 1905, the Editor 

 reproduces the photograph of the old tapping scar left on a Para 

 rubber tree figured in Bulletin. 



He remarks that while it was tapped with all reasonable care the 

 bark was penetrated even to the wood. " It will be seen that though 

 several inches of woody growth formed over the tapped surface the 

 scar still remained in the interior of the tree. The illustration is 

 an especially interesting one and should carry a warning to planters 

 against careless tapping.'' Curiously we came to quite an opposite 

 opinion on the same specimen. The tapping was very rough, the 

 central cut being much too broad. The striking thing was that 

 though the wounds were very large and deep and a big area of 

 wood denuded of cambium and exposed to the air there is no trace 

 of any decay, or real injury to the tree. A little black coloration 

 about a millimetre thick is all the trace of any injury. The speci- 

 men seems to show that a Para rubber tree will stand a great 

 amount of loss of cambium without any injurious effect. 



I may say that of the trees tapped through the cambium in the 

 Botanic Gardens, over 1,300 and many of them several times, only 

 one tree has ever been injured even by the roughest tapping, and 

 that was more of an accident than anything else.— Editor. 



Caterpillar attacking Tobacco Plants. 



Tobacco plants cultivated for commercial purposes or as orna- 

 mental plants, are very liable to the attacks of Caterpillars, one of 

 these identified as that of Chloridea assulta Green, by Sir GEORGE 

 HAMPSON, was found spoiling tobacco plants and also tomatos 



