and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society.— Nov., 1910. 465 



BRUSSELS EXHIBITION, 1910: 



Messrs. Ph. Mayfarth & Co., Makers of Agri- 

 cultural Machinery and Implements, Frankfort- 

 on-the-Main, Germany, have again carried the 

 highest award granted for agricultural machi- 

 nery, the " Grand Prix " of the Brussels Exhi- 

 bition. 



SPECIES OF THE GENUS " HEVEA." 



Colombo, Oct. 30th. 



Dear Sir,— It is pretty well acknowledged in 

 Ceylon that we have not here the real rubber- 

 yielding Castilloa tree of Mexico and Central 

 America, but a species which over there they 

 regard as very inferior as a rubber-yielder and 

 almost useless for plantation purposes. The 

 same seems to be the case with the Ceara tree. 



Hardly anyone has yet made bold to state that 

 we have the wrong Hevea tree here ; yet such 

 is very likely to be the fact when it is realised 

 that there are some 21 Heveas already known 

 and described from Brazil and South America. 



The plantation Hevea of the East was origi- 

 nally collected in Brazil by Mr. H. A. Wickham. 

 In his account of how and where he collected 

 the seeds of the first rubber plants brought to 

 the East, published by you some years ago in 

 an interview with Mr. Wickham, and since cor- 

 roborated by Mr. Wickham's own writings, he 

 gives the Rio Tapajos as the river in the district 

 of which he collected the seed. 



The various rubbers of Brazil are known by 

 the rivers from which they come (I believe I am 

 correct in this statement) ; and Rio Tapajos 

 rubber is not considered one of the best rubber, 

 being inferior to the up-river hard cure, which 

 comes from the far west of Brazil and Bolivia. 



It is quite likely, therefore — nay, probable — 

 that the tree which gives the finest hard cure 

 Para rubber is not Hevea brasiliensis, at ?ny 

 rate, but H. brasiliensis as known in Ceylon. 



Dr. Willis and Dr. Lock, of Peradeniya, can 

 no doubt confirm my remarks, and supplement 

 them, and I have no doubt Mr. Noel Ridley, 

 of Singapore, another authority, can give some 

 valuable information in this connection. The 

 22 species of Hevea may interest your planting 

 readers— so I give them here ; as they have 

 evidently not hitherto been published in the 

 East, for I note Wright does not give them in 

 his book on " Para Rubber," but only briefly 

 refers to 10 or 11 species. In fact Wright treats 

 the "Botany of the Para Rubber Tree "very 

 scantily in Chapter II of his book, and dis- 

 misses the subject of the different species in 

 so offhand a manner as to be surprising in 

 a work written by a scientist, claimed to be 

 scientific, and recognised as the standard work 

 on the subject. He coolly takes over Henri 

 Jumelle's statement or conclusion that "the dif- 

 ferences in colour, size and shape of the leaves 

 described by Ule and others are not constant 

 and may be disregarded," and therewith dis- 

 misses the matter, and describing " botanically 

 the genus Hevea," closes the subject in 7 lines ! 



However, I did not set out to criticise Wright, 

 who did much for the plantation industry in the 



59 



East before ho became a Company Director, 

 but has not done so much for it since, so far 

 as the poor planter is concerned. The 22 specie? 

 are botanically divided into two sections. 



(i) Euheveas, and (ii) Basiphonias. The 

 first section contains only two species : 

 Hevea guymensis, Anbl., and H. nigra Ule. 

 The Bisiphonias are botanically divided into 

 three series, Luteaj, Intermedin, and Obtusi- 

 fiorse. Among the first are E. lutea, apiculatx, 

 cunlata, (or peruviana), Benthamiana, Duckei, 

 paludosa, and rigidifolia (I do not give the 

 names of the botanists determining them.) 



Among Intermediieare H. minor, microphylla, 

 Randiana, and our Ceylon friend H. brasiliensis . 



In the last series we have H. Spruceana, 

 similis, discolor, paniflora, confusa, nitida, 

 viridis, and kunthiana. 



These I give merely as information for 

 planters and others interested in the rubber 

 plantation industry. As I leave Ceylon again 

 very shortly, I fear, I shall not be able to enter 

 into a correspondence discussion on the subject 

 in your columns ; but I trust to see in your very 

 interesting Tropical Agriculturist supplement 

 any replies or remarks my letter may bring 

 forth. — I am, Sir, etc., 



E. N. 



THE GERANIOL STANDARD FOR 

 CEYLON CITRONELLA OIL. 



Views of Shippers. 



We have made a number of enquiries in con- 

 nection with the letter from the editor of the 

 Chemist and Druggist re the application of the 

 geraniol test to Ceylon citronella oil and find 

 that the general opinion is that the Schimmel 

 test is all that is needed and that the geraniol 

 test would be impracticable. 



The Chamber of Commerce Attitude. 



From Mr Alexander Fairlie, the Acting 

 Chairman of the Chamber, and Mr F M Simp- 

 son, the Secretary, we learnt that the question 

 was referred to the Chamber by Government, as 

 the result of a discussion at a meeting of the 

 Board of Agriculture, in January, 1908. The 

 views of the different members interested were 

 obtained and it was found that no further steps 

 were considered necessary as the trade, in both 

 the island and the countries to which the oil 

 was exported, was satisfied with the results 

 afforded by SchimmePs test. Since that date the 

 matter had not been raised again but itJ,would 

 probably come up shortly in view of the London 

 Chamber of Commerce's proposition which had 

 been sent to the Ceylon Chamber. 



Mn. E. S. Clark. 



Mr E S Clark, of Messrs Clark, Young and Co. 

 said they had only been asked to ship under 

 Schimmel's test which was quite sufficient for 

 their purposes. They did receive complaints 

 that the quality was not right, but he did not 

 know that the adoption of the new test would 

 help matters. He" did not know what it was. 

 A pure oil, especially a low grade one, did not 

 always pass Schimmel's test and that; was pro- 

 bably one of the causes of dissatisfaction. 



