445 



It is not common, so far as we have seen, to find any fertilizing 

 insect at work, the only ones seen being a common species of Musca 

 with a dark green body and red head which has been seen in the even- 

 ing licking honey from the petals. It is the same insect which plays 

 the part of fertilizer of the oaks, Kurrimia, Sindora and other green 

 flowered strongly scented trees. It has not been seen at the flowers 

 of Hevea in such immense abundance as on the indigenous trees 

 mentioned where the roar of their wings can be heard from the foot 

 of the trees, and the ground in the vicinity is often thick with them. 

 It is probably, however, the fertilizer of Hevea. The larva of the 

 insect apparently feeds on dung, and heavy falls of rain, especially 

 in a place so liable to floods as the spot under observation, may, 

 perhaps, destroy it. We have also seen a brown pollen-eating fly, 

 one of the Syrphidse, at the flowers. 



The heavy storms may affect the fruiting also by destroying the 

 pollen but we are more inclined to think that they simply knock off 

 the male flowers before the pollination of the female is effected. The 

 result anyway is a poor fruit crop, but while a fruit crop may be 

 heavy or light as a result of successful or imperfect fertilization it 

 appears from the record of one decade that a large Spring crop is 

 more in response to a previous poor Autumn one. or complete failure 

 rather than a permanent or regularly defined foliar periodicity. At 

 the same time it will be evident, if it is allowed that there is one 

 time of the year better for tapping than another, that the returns of 

 latex from the same trees or groups of trees would be of varying 

 value and quantity according to the physiological state or phase 

 of the tree at that time. 



It is frequently contended that H eveabraziliensis in Malaya differs 

 in certain characteristics from the tree in the Amazons, where it is 

 indigenous and that it is here in a state of transition or modification. 

 We do not, however, consider that there are any signs of this. 



Reports from Brazil as to the flowering and fruiting seasons do 

 not quite agree with what occurs here, but this is no doubt due to 

 the difficulty of making accurate observations in mixed forests and 

 also to the fact that at one season of the year the whole country is 

 flooded, so that it must be impossible then to make satisfactory 

 observations, particularly when it is remembered that Rubber trees 

 in Brazil are estimated at an average of one to the acre. 



In Mr. Consul Temple's account (quoted Bulletin I p. 2) it is 

 stated that "The tree flowers in January, the seeds are ripe and begin 

 to fall in March in the case of old trees and in May in the case of 

 young trees." This, we know, is not substantially correct; March 

 seeds would be the result of September flowers, and January and 

 February flowers would produce seeds in August and Septem- 

 ber, at a time when, according to all observers, the country is 

 flooded and thus this fruiting would escape observation. According 

 to Ule, however {Kaiitscliuk-gewinnung und Kautschuk-handel i?t 

 Amazonen-strome), the flowering season is July and August, the 

 driest months, and most of the fruits fall in January and February, 

 the rainy season being from October to March. 



