ECONOMIC AND MEDICINAL PLANTS 171 
Bananas. 
other parts of the Malay Peninsula, the Para rubber tree has prospered 
especially, having yielded not only fine rubber but abundant seeds. 
These have been utilised to make fresh plantations. Now the Para 
rubber industry promises to be one of the most extensive and most 
profitable in the East, and numerous limited liability companies 
have been floated to develop it. The whole had its origin in the 
plants sent out from Kew in the autumn of 1875. 
These are, perhaps, the two most conspicuous instances of Kew’s 
activity in this direction, but numerous others might be mentioned. 
The Ceara rubber and the Central American rubber, which come next 
in importance to that of Para, have also been introduced to the 
East. 
The importation of bananas to Great Britain has attained enor- 
mous dimensions of late, yet the fruits received are of very inferior 
quality. By the distribution of superior varieties, Kew 
has been endeavouring to improve the future supply. 
The promising tea industry of Natal had its beginning in plants 
obtained from Kew. Although the great bulk of cocoa ( Theobroma 
Cacao) still comes from South America, the transmission to Ceylon 
of plants from Trinidad in 1880 laid the foundation of a new source 
of supply from the East. Numerous fibre-yielding plants have been 
sent to places suitable for their cultivation, and the same may be 
said of the finer varieties of pine-apple. The latest and most important 
work in the distribution of economic plants has been to supply the 
new botanic gardens of equatorial Africa with such as are likely to 
thrive there, and thus to originate new and profitable industries. 
Whilst the introduction of strictly useful plants to new Colonies has 
naturally been regarded as most important, the desire of the colonists 
to improve their surroundings has led to the introduction also of 
numerous purely ornamental garden plants. 
The collection of tropical and subtropical economic plants at 
Kew cannot be described as entirely satisfactory from the spectator’s 
standpoint. Many of them are, naturally, large trees 
which do not flower or produce fruit until they attain 
to the adult stage. To show many of them in their 
typical condition, therefore, is impossible. It is a curious fact, too, 
that several of them are more than ordinarily difficult to cultivate. 
The maintenance of as good a collection of these plants as possible 
has, however, two great advantages. It provides material from which 
Economic 
Plants. 
