662 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [April 1, 1901. 
Nothing further was heard at Calcutta of Sia 
Nahor for thirteen years when, in December, 
1899, Mr. Young, Deputy Conservator, sent a set 
of specimens, this time in fruit, for identification. 
Mr. Young writes as follows :— " The tree is to be 
found on the north bank only, and is most 
plentiful immediately under the hills in the 
North Lakhimpur sub-division. This fact probably 
accounts for its absence from Peal's list of Assam 
Timber trees, as I understand his collection was 
conlined to the souch bank of the Brahmaputra. 
" The tree is large, with a straight bole 60 feet 
and more to the first brL^nches, bark grey, v/ood 
close-grained, hard and very heavy. It is said 
to be very good for structural purposes, but decays 
rapidly in" contact with the soil." 
An examination of Mr. Young's fruiting speci- 
mens made it clear that the Sia Nahor was not 
Kayca fioribunda, but before preparing a formal 
description, fuller material was desirable. Mr. 
Young was accordingly asked to send flowering 
.spocimens to correspond with the fruiting ones 
"already sent. With this request, Mr. Young very 
courteously complied in June, 1900. These plainly 
showed that in " Sia Nahor " we have to deal with 
a hitherto undescribed species of Kayca. To make 
this absolutely certain, the material now available 
was submitted to Sir George King, who has kindly 
compared the specimens with those in the collection 
at Kew and, in conhrming the view that the species 
has not before been described, has kindly under- 
taken the joint responsibility as to its name. A 
formal description of the tree is given below. 
Kayea assamica, King and Frain.—A. tall 
handsome glabrous tree, bark grey, wood hard, 
close-grained ; young branches pale, slender, 
cylindric. Leaves opposite, firmly coriaceous, 
entire, ovate lanceolate, basecuneate, apex shortly 
caudate-acuminate, nerves numerous, equal, 
slender, one-eighth of an inch apart, not prominent 
on either surface, upper surface somewhat shining, 
lower dull; length, 3-5— 4-5 in.; width, 1-35— 
1-75 in. ; petiole slender -4 in. long. Floioers, in 
slender, terminal and axillary panicles, 3—6 in. 
lontr, branches of panicle short, slender glabrous, 
ped'icels in flower very slender, -2 in. long, in fruit 
elongated and thickened, bracts and bracteoles at 
base of branchlets, and pedicels 2 opposite small 
caducous. Sepals 4, imbricate, outer pair orbicnlar 
•15 in. long, much enlarged in fruit, inner wide 
spathulate, apex rounded. Petals 4, shorter than 
sepals, suborbicular, -1 in. long, thin, white. 
Stamens many, filaments free, capillary, longer 
tlian sepals ; anthers globose. Fruit globose ; 
covered by the thick accresc nt calyx, tipped by 
the remains of the style, '85 in. across. Seed 
solitary. , , , . £ t n 
Assam ; North Lakhimpur, near the toot of tlie 
hills, common, £ar/.;er/ Young! 
The species is most nearly allied to Kayea 
floribimda which, however, differs markedly in its 
much longer leaves, narrower for their width, with 
fewer more arching nerves which are much more 
prominent beneath ; in its more copious racemes 
with larger flowers and in its much larger fruit 
which is rS -r75 in. -dcxoss.— Indian Forester. 
PLANTING NOTES. 
StsATj Hemp.— Some thousands of Sisal hemp plants 
have been planted rouud the island of Sc. Helena, 
Oueenslaud's penal establishment. The suckers were 
Dut in about twelve months ago, and they now aver- 
age about b feet in height, each plant having from 
40 to 00 leaves from 4 to 5 feet la length. If any 
^r80£ were wautod of the adaptability of our climate 
to this valuable plant, it is plainly furnished here. 
If the authorities of the island are provided with 
iacilities to clean the leaves and produce the fibre 
during the ensuing twelve months, there can no 
longer remain any doubt as to whether the crop 
would pay or not, especially if accurate records were 
kept of the actual amount of labour and time expen- 
ded from the cutting of the leaves to the baling of 
the cleaned fibre. — (Juscnsland Ar/ricultural Journal. 
An Inch of Rain. — What does an inch of rain 
mean? Pew persons have a definite idea. An acre, 
if calculated out, will prove to be 6,272,640 square 
inches. An inch deep of water on this acre will 
be as many cubic inches of water, which, at 231 to 
the gallon, is equal to 27,154 gallons. This immense 
quantity of water will weigh 228,190 lb. or 114 tons. 
One hundredth of an inch ("01) alone is equal to over 
one ton of water to the acre. In forty-eight hours, 
during the month of January, ISi inches of rain 
fell at Geraldton. This was equal to 420,837 gallons 
per acre or 1,767 tons, or about one-seventh of the 
total quantity required to irrigate a crop of sugar- 
cane during the growing season. — Ibid. 
Caprification of Figs.— The caprification or cross- 
pollenisation of figs is described in a recent number 
of the Calif orniaa Fruitgroioer. The work in Smyrna 
is performed by women and children, who gather 
the profichi and suspend them in the branches of 
the Smyrna tree. lu the Meander orchards it is 
customary to string the hard profichi on the ends 
of rushes, which are pushed horizontally through the 
sides of the tig ; if the profichi are plentiful, two 
are strung on each end of the rush, which is then 
thrown up into the Smyrna tree and caught among 
the branches. The tig wasp, on emerging from the 
profichi, enters the tigs nearest to hand, not discern- 
ing any external difference between the young Smyrna 
figs and the young mammoni. which it would enter 
if still in the caprifig tree. But, once inside, the 
tig wasp discovers that something is wrong, for, 
instead of tinding short-styled male flowers in whicti 
it could lay its eggs, there are only lemale flowers 
with long styles, which are entirely unfitted to receive 
the eggs ; the insect is unable to eso.^pe, and, in 
darting about in vain efforts to find some wale flowers, 
the pollen with which it was so freely dusted in 
emerging from the profichi is rubbed into the recep- 
tive stigmas of the female flowers, The little wasp 
finally dies in the fig without having been able to 
provide for the production of its kind, and, on cut- 
ting open a Smyrna fig shortly after caprification, 
one can usually find the dead insect. — Ibid. 
Conifers as Rain Gauges. — According to a recent 
number of the Revue Rorticole, M. Felix Sahut has 
lately communicated to the Congies des Socieies 
Savantes observations respecting certain plants that 
act as registering rain gauges : — " Mention has already 
been made of the influence of certain more or less 
severe droughts in the French Mediterranean upon 
Pinus Laiicio of Corsica, and Cephalonian Fir. 
The lengthening of the branches of these two species 
is always proportionate to the quantity of rain falling 
during those months of the year when it is most 
profitable to them. Co-efficients have been established 
indicating what the deg ree is for each month of the 
year. These co-efiioients enable the relationship that 
exists between the amount of rain fallen and the 
greater or less intensity of the vegetation which it 
lias encouraged to be determined. It is shown that, 
under these conditions, it is possible to judge approxi- 
mately the quantity of ram which has fallen by 
measuring exactly the length of the leader, or of 
the branch produced yearly on these species of pine, 
and, if the estimate is not absolutely proportionate 
to the quantity cf rain registered by the rain-gauge, 
it closely approaches to it; and a still closer estimation 
may be made by taking into account the relative 
value of the results produced by rain in the several 
months of the year. It is, therefore, possible, to a, 
certain extent, to use plants specially selected for 
this purpose as actueil registering rain-gauges, 
Jbid, 
