*53 



vrrts carbolic, and corrosive sublimate. A little practice will en- 

 able anyone to prepare specimens good enough for identification, 

 and once started, and the names of a few plants learned each step 

 becomes easier and more interesting. Contributions of dried plants 

 are always acceptable to the Botanic Gardens, both in Singapore 

 and Penang, even though already well known, for they serve to 

 increase our knowledge of the distribution of the species. The 

 Malay names of even the most common plants are always accept- 

 able for it is only by collecting these over a large area that the one 

 most generally used can be ascertained. 



It should be mentioned that to each specimen when first gather- 

 ed, a slip of paper should be attached, giving particulars of the 

 specimen on the following points : — (a) locality, (b) elevation above 

 sea level, (c) whether tree, shrub, etc , (d) 1 colour of flowers, and any 

 other peculiarity noticed. 



GUTTA PERCHA PROM LEAVES. 



Information from various sources tend to show that the collection 

 of Gutta Percha leaves is a more wasteful and extravagant method, 

 and one that will sooner exhaust the supply wherever it is allowed, 

 than the old one of cutting the trees only for the gutta in the stems, 

 as was the custom until comparatively recently. Under the old system 

 trees were cut much too young, but there was a point at which the 

 collector stopped because the gutta it contained would not pay for 

 the labour of collecting. Under the present system young saplings 

 an inch in diameter are chopped down for the sake of the few leaves 

 which cannot otherwise easily be got at. I am told by a gentle- 

 man who has recently been in the Rio Archipelago that this is 

 the system there, and that there is a coasting steamer employed in 

 going from village to village to collect the leaves and bring them 

 to a central factory. To suppose that native collectors will, or 

 could if they would, carry ladders in places where gutta percha 

 trees are found naturally growing, or that they will pay any regard 

 to the future supply, is absurd. Anyone who has studied the 

 Palaquium trees and noted their slow growth will, I think, have 

 doubts as to whether the plucking of leaves from planted trees is 

 likely to be capable of practical application. In my opinion the 

 only way in which the discovery of extracting gutta percha from 

 the leaves can, with our present knowledge, prove beneficial is in 

 the fact that instead of wasting the leaves of the trees that are cut 

 down, and the gutta extracted from the bark in the usual native 

 manner, they also are utilised. 



THE DISSEMINATION OF SEEDS BY NATURAL 



MEANS. 



The means by which seeds are disseminated in order that a 

 sufficient number may find a suitable spot in which to perpetuate 

 their kind are numerous and interesting, and have a practical bear- 



