' HARD SEED " IN INDIGOFERA ARRECTA HOCHST. 



65 



ON THE OCCURRENCE OF " HARD SEED " IN INDIGOFERA 

 ARRECTA HOCHST * 



By H. M. Leake, M.A., F.L.S. 



The introduction, in the form of a commercial rival, of the German 

 synthetic product has caused an abrupt awakening to those interested in 

 the natural indigo industry of Northern India. Their long-standing mono- 

 poly has broken down, and the rapid fall in prices which this competition 



Fig. 17. —Indigofera arrecta. 

 From untreated seed. From treated seed. 



has brought about has created an urgent demand for a means by which 

 the expenditure, relative to the outturn, might be reduced. 



Our method for the accomplishment of this desideratum has formed 

 the basis of considerable hopes ; it is the introduction of the so-called 

 * Natal- Java ' plant, Indigofera arrecta Hochst.t 



The popular name of this plant is derived from the two localities from 

 which seed has been imported to Behar. One of these localities is Natal- 

 near, though not in, which it is found wild ; the second is Java,+ where it 

 is extensively cultivated at the present day, and where it has already 



* Prain and Baker in Journal of Botany, April 1902, p. 143. 



t The confusion existing in the terminology of the cultivated species of the genus. 

 Indigofera is well summed up in a letter from Major D. Prain, I.M.S., Supdt. 

 Roy. Bot. Gard., Calcutta, to Mr. C. A. Barber, Govt. Botanist, Madras, published in 

 Indian Planting and Gardening, xi. No. 25, Dec. 18, 1902, p. 453. 



J Where it passes under the name of Indigofera leptostachya DC. 



F 



