BOTANIC AND DOMAIN GARDENS, 
23 
ESSAY ON THE FIBRES FORWARDED TO THE AMSTERDAM INTER- 
NATIONAL HORTICULTURAL EXHIBITION, FROM THE MEL- 
BOURNE BOTANIC GARDENS. BY W, R. GUILFOYLE, F.L.S., 
DIRECTOR. 
April 15th, 1876. 
The attention of all civilized nations has been of late years so largely 
and anxiously taken up with the important subject of fibre plants, 
suitable for the manufacture of textile fabrics, paper, &c., and as I am 
directing my attention, as far as the very limited time and means at my 
disposal will admit, to the development of our resources in this respect, 
it may not be out of place to offer a few brief remarks upon the collec- 
tion of fibres which have been forwarded to your exhibition, and which 
have been prepared at the Melbourne Botanic Gardens from indigenous 
Australian and New Zealand plants ; the latter being naturalized in the 
gardens. In preparing these fibres no elaborate machinery has been 
employed, the appliances at hand for this purpose being of the most 
crude description, and the mode of preparation adopted the most simple, 
having been accomplished by maceration in water, or retting as it is 
technically termed, or by a simple boiling process. The former opera- 
tion has been employed with regard to the different barks from which 
fibre has been prepared ; whilst the latter process has been employed 
exclusively to plants whose leaves and stems afford fibre; such as the 
Dianellas, Xerotes, Juncus, Lepidospermas, Phormium, Pandanus, 
Cordylines, &c. I find that by this mode a great saving of time and 
labor is effected (whilst the fibre is in some instances improved) from 
6 to 50 hours being sufficient to digest the outer fleshy coating 
(epidermis) of the leaves sufficiently well to admit of its easy removal 
by scraping, which has at the same time, the effect of removing the 
resin and other deleterious substances to such an extent from the fibre, 
as to admit of the latter being passed through the heckling machine, so 
as to arrange the filaments in parallel order and remove all extraneous 
matter. 
No special claims as to excellence, with regard to the manner in 
which the samples of fibre shown on this and other occasions have been 
prepared is put forth ; the sole object of the writer being, to bring 
prominently before the world, the fact, that in the production of indi- 
genous fibre plants, and plants suitable for paper making, Australia and 
New Zealand, must at no distant date play a very prominent part 
indeed ; and at the same time to inspire, in the minds not only of the 
colonists themselves, but also in those of influential mercantile men and 
