Gums, Resinst 



i 



[July, 1911. 



1. — The species of Castilloa at present 

 growing in Jamaica. 



The Castilloa elastica of Cervantes was 

 one of the earliest species described, and 

 it was for long supposed that all the 

 Ule or Hule, and Caucho trees of Mexico 

 and Central America belonged to this 

 species, but the large amounts of Ameri- 

 can capital that have been invested in 

 Castilloa rubber cultivation rendered 

 necessary the careful investigation and 

 study of the trees which were found to 

 vary greatly in their yields of latex and 

 in other respects, and one of the facts 

 that have been clearly established is, 

 that there are many species of Castilloa 

 instead of a single species ranging over 

 the enormous extent of territory from 

 Mexico to Bolivia. 



In 1875, the India Office despatched Mr. 

 Robert Cross, aa experienced collector, 

 to Central America to gather seeds of 

 Castilloa elastica. 



Cross assumed that the Caucho of 

 Darien (Panama) was the same as the 

 Ule, or Castilloa elastica of Cervantes 

 and selected the forests of the rivers 

 Chagres and Gatun, then well-known 

 localities for rubber, for the purpose of 

 collecting the seeds. 



Mr, Cross made no botanical specimens 

 of the Caucho trees beyond some badly 

 preserved old leaves and seeds, ?o that 

 there was no means of identifying the 

 species with certainty on his arrival at 

 Kew. He sent home about 7,000 seeds, 

 all of which perished in transit. He had 

 observed that the seeds were of a very 

 perishable nature, and made a large 

 collection of cuttings of the true bran- 

 ches. 



He was shipwrecked on the Pedro Cays 

 off Jamaica and all left the ships but 

 Mr. Cross who refused to desert his cut- 

 tings. Eventually he was rescued by 

 H. M. S. " Dryad" and landed at Kings- 

 ton whence he sailed on the R. M. S. 

 "Nile" arriving at Southampton in 

 October. 



From the cuttings thus obtained a sup- 

 ply of plants was raised at Kew and of 

 these 57 were despatched to the Botanic 

 Gardens, Ceylon, in 1876 and 1877 and 

 the majority arrived alive. Plants were 

 also sent to Liberia and the Cameiuons 

 river on the West Coast of Africa, aud 

 to Mauritius and Zanzibar on the east 

 coast; also to Singapore. Java, Jamaica 

 and Grenada. From Ceylon plants were 

 sent to Calcutta, Burma and Madras, 

 and from Singapore to Perak and 

 Queensland. 



The first plants sent to Jamaica did 

 not live, but in the Annual Report on 

 the Public Gardens Plantations for 



the year ending 30th September, 1882, 

 Mr. (now Sir Daniel) Morris, who was 

 then Director, states, that "The Castil- 

 loa or ^Central American rubber was 

 introduced from Kew last year (1881) and 

 there are two plants, one of which is in 

 good health." 



It occurred to me that the plants sent 

 here in 1881 might have been raised from 

 some other source than the cuttings 

 taken from Darien by Cross in 1875, and 

 I communicated with Kew on the sub- 

 ject, but the Curator of the Royal Gar- 

 dens assures me our plants were also 

 raised from the Darien cuttings and 

 that their records show that these were 

 sent to Jamaica in 1881. One of these 

 apparently died, but the other two grew 

 into fine trees and the seed obtained 

 from these produced the majority of the 

 older trees now growing in Jamaica. 



One of the original trees was destroyed 

 by the hurricane in 1903, but the other 

 still survives after a most eventful 

 history since it was taken as a cutting 

 from its home on the isthmus. 



In 1882 some of the trees sent to Ceylon 

 in 1876 flowered and fruited and some- 

 time later Dr. Trimen, who was then 

 Director of the Ceylon Gardens, sent a 

 specimen and a drawing — with complete 

 analysis of the flowers and fruit— to 

 Kew, Sir Joseph Hooker at once saw 

 that the Darien tree as cultivated in 

 Ceylon differed considerably from the 

 true Castilloa elastica, and that eminent 

 botanist read a paper on *' The Castilloa 

 elastica of Cervantes and some allied 

 rubber-yielding Plants" at a Meeting 

 of the Linnean Society in December, 

 1885, just 25 years ago, pointing out the 

 differences that he had observed in the 

 structure of the several forms that he 

 had examined. Notwithstanding this, 

 subsequent writers persisted in referr- 

 ing the tree cultivated in the eastern 

 tropics and in the West Indies to 

 Castilloa elastica. 



In the early part of last year Professor 

 H. Pittier, who was for many years 

 Director of the National Iustitute of 

 Costa Rica, but has for some time been 

 a member of the scientific staff of the 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture at 

 Washington, applied to us for botanical 

 specimens of our Castilloa trees, as he 

 was engaged iu monographing the genus. 

 Specimens were sent to him from the 

 original tree at Castleton and from a 

 tree at Hope Gardens. Professor Pittier 

 states that the Castleton and Hope trees 

 are identical and that they belong to 

 his species guatemalensis. 



Fortunately for growers hero this 

 species is probably one of the best that 



