268 



[October, 1912, 



First Introduction of Hevea. 



The introduction ofjSouth American species was undertaken by Kew 

 at the expense of the Indian Government. At first, attempts were made 

 to import seeds of Hevea, but it was found that these deteriorated 

 rapidly and very few reached England alive. In 1873, Markham forward- 

 ed to Kew seeds of Hevea brasiliensis which had been obtained from the 

 Amazons, and from these about a dozen plants were raised. A note by 

 Trimen on the Peradeniya copy of the Kew report states that these seeds 

 were obtained by Parris through Collins. In the same year, Dr. King, 

 then superintendent of the Calcutta Botanic Garden, took out six of these 

 plants with him on his return to India, and from these others were raised 

 by cuttings ; but the climate of Calcutta proved unsuitable for Hevea, 

 and in the following year King expressed doubt that the plant would 

 ever tb rive there. In 1876, he reported that it had failed both in Cal- 

 cutta and Sikkim. There is no record that Calcutta distiibuted 

 plants of this consignment to other countries, though they were pro- 

 pagated there by cuttings. 



Second Introduction of Hevea. 



The transmission of seed in the ordinary way having been found 

 impracticable, Mr. Robert Cross was sent out to South America to obtain 

 plants. At the same time, a commission was given to Mr. H. A. Wickhain, 

 who was then resident at Santarem, to collect seeds at the rate of £10 per 

 thousand. Such a commission must, at the time, have been considered 

 somewhat of the nature of a forlorn hope, scarcely possible of realisation, 

 as indeed the absence of any stipulations or conditions would appear to 

 indicate. But Wickham, fortunately for the East, found a steamer, at 

 the very time the seed was ripe, about to return to England without a 

 cargo, and chartered it "on behalf of the Indian Government." Seeds 

 were immediately collected " in the forest covering the broad plateaux 

 dividing the Tapajos from the Madeira rivers," and placed on board. 

 They were cleared at Para as botanical specimens for Her Britannic 

 Majesty's Royal Gardens at Kew, and were safely out of the country 

 before anyone had time to realise the true meaning of the enterprise. 

 As an example of colossal " nerve," the whole proceeding would be hard 

 to beat. 



Wickham reached England in June 187(5 with 76,000 seeds, arriving at 

 Kew on June 14th. The following day the seeds were sown, and about 

 3j per cent, subsequently germinated, some as early as the fourth day 

 after sowing. As it had already been demonstrated that Hevea would 

 not thrive in Calcutta or in any of the readily accessible Botanic Gardens 

 of India, Ceylon was chosen as the centre where the plants should be 

 established and whence they might be transmitted to different parts of 

 India. In the following August, 1919 plants were forwarded to Ceylon 

 in charge of a gardener, and about 90 per cent, arrived in good condition. 



In addition to the main consignment to Ceylon, small parcels of 

 plants were sent to Africa (West coast), Burma, Dominica, Jamaica, Java, 

 Queensland, Singapore, and Trinidad. " In the caee of Singapore the 

 result was unfortunate. Owing to the delay of the India Office in paying 

 the freight, the cases did not come into the hands of the Superintendent 

 of the Botanic Gardens until the plants were nearly all dead." Ridley 

 states that none of these plauts survived ; but that is evidently a mistake, 

 since in the Kew Report tor 1877, an extract from a letter from Murtou 



