( 8 ) 
The cultivation of Cubebs as a commercial pursuit appears to be carried on only in certain 
parts of Java and Sumatra, and the business to be almost entirely in the hands of the natives. The 
dried fruits, which form the Cubebs of commerce, come into trade through Singapore. No details 
are known of the mode of cultivation, which, however, appears to be merely that of ordinary pepper, 
the stems being allowed to climb over the trunks of trees, and the fruits plucked before they are 
quite ripe, and carefully dried. There is no reason to doubt that it could be easily carried on in the 
moist low-country of Ceylon, and it is perhaps remarkable that it has not been practised by our native 
population who grow other kinds of pepper so largely. It is, however, by no means easy to obtain 
the true P. Cubeba, which is a plant very little known, and indeed imperfectly understood even 
by botanists. Several other species approach it very closely, and even at Kew the cultivated plant, 
hitherto believed to be P. Cubeba, and figured by me under that name in 1877 (" Medicinal Plants " 
III., t. 243), has since been determined to be another species ; and there is nothing now there to 
represent the Cubebs plant.* The botany of the subject is still greatly involved, and in trade also 
numerous spurious and false Cubebs are met with, the fruits of allied species. 
One of the difficulties in the way of commencing the cultivation of Cubebs is due to the 
plant being dioecious, with the male and female flowers borne on different plants. On several 
occasions I have succeeded in getting plants for the Gardens, and at present I have some fifteen 
young plants at Henaratgoda, obtained by propagating from a single one from Singapore. Un- 
happily, on flowering this proved to be a male, as has been the case with each of the other plants 
I have been able at different times to obtain. Either sex is, of course , useless alone, and I am now 
attempting to get ripe seed from Java. But it appears to be difficult to obtain this from the natives. 
The crop is said to be a somewhat uncertain one, and this may account for the irregular supply of 
the market and the great fluctuations in price. 
Ipecacuanha. — This very valuable drug has been in cultivation here for many years. The 
Gardens first received it in 1848f from Kew, and additional consignments from the same source were 
obtained in 1866 and 1871, whilst in 1874 a hundred plants arrived from Calcutta in good order. 
Many remarks on its cultivation will be found in Dr. Thwaites' reports from 1872 to 1878. So long as 
it was grown at Peradeniya very little satisfactory growth could be obtained, and the plants remained 
very small, but at Henaratgoda the results have been somewhat better. Still, as I remarked in my 
report for 1880, not much progress, so far as the production of the roots themselves went, could be 
reported. During the past year, however, as a result of more care in the preparation of the soil and 
choice of situation for the beds, some roots of much finer growth have been produced, and I do not 
dispair of yet producing a good sample of this important medicine. The plant is propagated with 
extreme facility by division of its roots, but from its small size and very slow growth it must 
always be the subject rather of garden than estate cultivation. Mr. Cantley, in his last report on the 
Singapore Botanic Garden, notes that in Johore he saw thousands of plants in excellent health grown 
in rich vegetable soil with wood ashes, and well protected from the sun and wind by palm-leaves. 
I may note that a commercial sample has been imported to London from Singapore (probably from 
this very plantation) and has formed the subject of analysis, showing a proportion of P7 per cent, 
emetine, which is well up to the average of the Brazilian drug.J By order of the Madras Govern- 
ment a plantation is about to be formed in the teak plantation at Nilambur on the Malabar 
coast. 
Coca. — Our numerous old bushes at Peradeniya bearing this year a large crop of seed, I 
advertised it for sale and disposed of some 25,000 seeds to over 100 purchasers. As this seems to 
show some renewal of interest in the plant, a few further notes upon it may be here given. As 
stated in my report for 1884, we received the plant originally in 1870 from Kew, and I believe that 
all the plants now in the Colony have been derived from the Peradeniya stock. § This matter of 
origin is important, as more than one variety is in cultivation. Mr. Thiselton Dyer informs me that 
there is some doubt as to the source of the Kew plant, but it is thought likely that it may have 
been obtained from M. Triana, the well-known South American Botanist, in which case it was 
collected in New Grenada and not in Peru or Bolivia. His specimens in the Kew Herbarium, collected 
on the Rio Magdalena, are precisely like the cultivated plant at Kew. So long back as 1876, when I 
described and figured the Kew Garden plant (" Medicinal Plants," i. t. 40) it was obvious to me that 
it differed somewhat in the form of its leaves from the typical E. Coca, and I added a figure of the 
usual pointed form of leaf for comparison. It is probable that several forms are cultivated in South 
America, and perhaps some may be richer in alkaloid than others. I am informed by Dr. Burck, of 
Buitenzorg, that two varieties are now being grown in Java, and that one of them has yielded on 
analysis a percentage of 87 per cent, of Cocaine, which is considerably higher than that of the sample 
sent home by me from Peradeniya, as recorded in my report for 1885. I am now sending home for 
analysis some other more carefully prepared samples of our variety. The existence of different 
varieties of this species may probably explain the fact, noted in my report for 1884, that though a 
* See Kew " Bulletin" for December, 1887, where will be found a figure, taken from a dried specimen from Java, 
of !)!'■ l r ti <; plant. A more complete illustration is given in two folio plates in Miquel's treatise " De vera Pipere Cubeba" 
( L889 of which there iH a copy in the Peradeniya Library. 
f This if eighteen yean earlier than the date usually given for the introduction of the plant into the Bast. I regret 
J have nothing l/oyond the bare record, in Mr. Gardner's report of these Gardens for 1817-48, of its receipt here. 
t I'harmac. Journ., November 12, 1887, pp. 100 and 400. 
§ Mr. T. ChriHty of London, is believed to have sent some seeds and plants to Ceylon, but I am unable to trace them. 
