March, 1909.J 



279 



Miscellaneous. 



With its settled government and rising 

 value in lands, Brazil has a splendid 

 future, but the British public, as a 

 whole, know nothing of all this. Not 

 one man in a hundred even knows 

 of the splendid Exhibition that has 

 been held in Rio this year. Prom 

 an architectural and artistic point of 

 view, this Exhibition rivalled our 

 beautiful White City, whilst for 

 scenic effect the background of verdure- 

 clad hills rising from the Paria 

 Vermelha, or Red Beach of Rio, made 

 a more finished panoramic effect. 

 Such indifference is most regrettable, 

 but it only requires the Brazilian 

 Government to do as our go-ahead 

 Australian Colonies are doing, and make 

 an exhaustive show of what Brazil 

 has to offer to the capitalist, the agri- 

 culturist, the hunter, the traveller, and 

 others, to make the English as ready to 

 invest money in Brazil as they have 

 been in the sister State, Argentina. It 

 is just the same with Colombia, one of 

 the finest countries in the world, full of 

 gold and other minerals, with rubber 

 and cacao of a quality unequalled by 

 any country, but sans capital, sans 

 railways, sans transport facilities, sans 

 everything to make it as it should 

 be, and what its energetic President, 

 General Reyes, wishes it to be, the 

 Pearl of the Latin American States. 

 Only by advertising the possibilities and 

 exhibiting the produce of such a country 

 can that end be attained. 



These are only three instances, but 

 there are many more, and Tropical Life 

 hopes to induce these and all the others 

 to take part in the Tropical Exhibition. 

 —Tropical Life, Vol. IV,, No. 12, Decem- 

 ber, 1908. 



COMMELINA NUDIFLORA, LINN. 



By T. Wilson Main. 



Owing to a startling paragraph in the 

 Westminster Gazette in August, we had 

 several enquiries about Cmwmelina 

 nudiflora, Linn., and its wonderful pro- 

 perties. 



It is spoken of as "a wonderful tro- 

 pical creeper," " Weed-eating plant," 

 etc, etc. It is said to be a splendid plant 

 for destroying lalang, and has been 

 recommended to owners and managers 

 of rubber plantations for this purpose. 

 How such an unobtrusive little plant 

 should have gained such notoriety is 

 quite remarkable. 



The habit and growth of this little 

 creeper makes it quite unfit for such 

 purposes, In the first place it grows 



best in damp swampy places, generally 

 in small patches here and there or by 

 the sides of ditches or small streams, and 

 I have never seen it growing on dryer 

 lalang land or in conjunction with lalang. 

 It is not by any means a robust grow- 

 ing creeper, never rising more than six 

 or eight inches from the ground, and 

 does not even possess the property of 

 climbing over other vegetation. It is 

 this property of climbing over other 

 plants and smothering them which 

 recommends a plant as an eradicator ot 

 lalang, foi i example, Passifiora fcetida 

 recommended by many becaause it pos- 

 sesses this habit. 



Commelina nudiflora belongs to the 

 natural order Conimelinacew, and is 

 found throughout the hotter parts of 

 India from the Punjab to Ceylon and 

 Singapore. The stems are creeping and 

 rooting at the nodes. Leaves glabrous 

 scaberulous or puberulous ciliate. 

 Spathes acute, base round or cordate, 

 glabrous or pubescent, striate; peduncle 

 J-f in., cymes 2, branches 1-3 fid. Smaller 

 petals blue, outer pale or white. — Agri- 

 cultural Bulletin of the Straits and F 

 M.S., Vol. VIII., No. 1, January, 1908. 



CO-OPERATIVE CREDIT. 



The Movement in India. 



Continuing his lectures on higher com- 

 mercial and economic subjects, Profes- 

 sor Lees-Smith, at the Byramji Jijibhoy 

 Institute, Bombay, on Friday evening, 

 delivered the fifth discourse of the series 

 dealing with the subjects of Co-operative 

 Credit Societies. In the first place, he said, 

 he wished them to mark that Co-oper- 

 ative Credit Societies were self-govern- 

 ing institutions. In Germany in a model 

 rural society there was first a General 

 Assembly consisting of all who belonged 

 to the society. Within that General 

 Assembly was a Committee of Super- 

 vision elected by the General Assembly, 

 and within the Committee of Supervision 

 was a smaller body still, the Directors, 

 who were the actual organisers, who 

 were the actual men who conducted the 

 operations. There were in Germany, as 

 there were here, rural societies for the 

 agricultural districts and urban societies 

 for the towns. The great figure, the 

 poineers of the rural societies, was 

 Raffeiseu, and the founder and creator of 

 urban Societies was Schulze Delitzche. 

 He might mention for the credit of his 

 native land that the idea of the Societies 

 was borrowed from the English Friendly 

 Societies. In the German Agricultural 

 Societies, practically speaking, there was 

 no share capital. The money with which 

 they conducted their operations consist- 



