Further economic bushes are : — (i) Gossypiam brasiliense, the Pernambuco cotton. It was very common on the 
tropical coasts of Brazil when European trading vessels first visited them, and the length of its silky floss raised great 
hopes, so that it was soon carried both to Europe and to the Portuguese settlements in the East. It is the cotton most 
tolerant of the climate of Singapore ; but, unfortunately, in spite of successive experiments, it has found no place in 
field-culture. (2) Lonchocarpus cyanescenSj the Yoruba indigo, is a dye plant of West Africa, and its colouring matter 
is indigo ; but there is rather less of it in the plant than in species of Indigofera. (3) Bixa Orellana, the Annatto plant, 
the seed-coats of which give a yellow dye formerly used by the Indians of tropical America as a paint for their bodies, 
and by the more cultivated peoples of Mexico as a colouring matter for their beverages made from Cacao. It came into 
use in Europe for colouring butter and cheese. (4) Heematoxylon campechianum, the Logwood, which grows in 
Mexico, Yucatan and the West Indies. It gives the purple-dyeing wood familiar in trade. Though a tree of 40 ft. 
in height, it is possible to clip it into a hedge. (5) Uncaria gambler, the Gambier bush. Gambier is a tan, extracted 
by boiling from the leaves of this bush ; it is used for chewing along with betel, as a medicine both in the East and 
in Europe, and more rarely for tanning leather. It is said the Malay name Gutta Gambir is a corruption from the 
Tamil ; and this suggests that just as natives of India brought, not the sugar cane, but sugar-making from that country 
into Malaysia, so they brought, not the Gambier plant, but the art of making Gambier, in imitation of cutch-making as 
practised in India. Under modern conditions, Gambier-boiling only pays with very cheap fuel ; and the industry, 
which is in the hands of Chinese, wanders with the attack of man on virgin forest ; it was in Borneo in 1758, and was 
thence brought into the Malay Peninsula, If the natives of India started the industry in Malaysia, the Javanese or 
Sundanese must have made Gambier for them in Java ; but of this we possess no indication. We know, however, that in 
the 17th century the Javanese grew the plant that they might chew the leaves, as they still do. (6) Tamarindus indica, 
the Tamarind, the pods of which are widely used as a condiment, and the seeds as an astringent medicine. (7) Ilex 
paraguayensis, Mate or Paraguay tea, a bush extensively grown for tea-making in South America. (8) Camellia 
theifera, the true tea bush. The first growing of the tea bush by Chinese is prehistoric. It was experimentally 
grown in Penang in 1802 and in Singapore in 1822 ; but allowed to die in both places. Between 1821 and 1826 it was 
discovered that a variety of Camellia theifera grew wild in the parts of India contiguous to China ; and this was both 
brought into cultivation, and crossed with the smaller leaved China tea, giving the hybrid with which tea-cultivation 
commenced in India, and extended to Ceylon after the failure of coffee there. In 1878 the hybrid was introduced 
into Singapore and grown in the Gardens, and produced for a time an industry on a small scale, maintained up to igo8, 
when rubber-planting opened more profitable avenues. (9) Cola nitida. The home of Cola is West Africa, where it 
takes among the natives the place that tea has in China or coffee in the Levant. The nuts began to come into Europe 
in the i6th century. Their tonic effect is now well known and there is a steady import. 
Adjoining these economic plants, the Gardens^ collection of Hibiscus is arranged. When Europeans first sailed 
the Pacific they found Hibiscas Rosa-sinensis in cultivation in races with flowers that were rose or white, and later 
in China a race with yellow flowers ; and these races were brought into hot-houses in Europe. The subsequent 
— 18 
