*53 
verts carbolic, and corrosive sublimate. A little practice will en- 
able anyone to prepare specimens good enough for identification, 
and once started, and the names of a few plants learned each step 
becomes easier and more interesting. Contributions of dried plants 
are always acceptable to the Botanic Gardens, both in Singapore 
and Penang, even though already well known, for they serve to 
increase our knowledge of the distribution of the species. The 
Malay names of even the most common plants are always accept- 
able for it is only by collecting these over a large area that the one 
most generally used can be ascertained. 
It should be mentioned that to each specimen when first gather- 
ed, a slip of paper should be attached, giving particulars of the 
specimen on the following points : — {a) locality, (b) elevation above 
sea level, (c) whether tree, shrub, etc , (d) colour of flowers, and any 
other peculiarity noticed. 
GUTTA PERCHA PROM LEAVES. 
Information from various sources tend to show that the collection 
of Gutta Percha leaves is a more wasteful and extravagant method, 
and one that will sooner exhaust the supply wherever it is allowed, 
than the old one of cutting the trees only for the gutta in the stems, 
as was the custom until comparatively recently. Under the old system 
trees were cut much too young, but there was a point at which the 
collector stopped because the gutta it contained would not pay for 
the labour of collecting. Under the present system young saplings 
an inch in diameter are chopped down for the sake of the few leaves 
which cannot otherwise easily be got at. I am told by a gentle- 
man who has recently been in the Rio Archipelago that this is 
the system there, and that there is a coasting steamer employed in 
going from village to village to collect the leaves and bring them 
to a central factory. To suppose that native collectors will, or 
could if they would, carry ladders in places where gutta percha 
trees^are found naturally growing, or that they will pay any regard 
to the future supply, is absurd. Anyone who has studied the 
Palaquium trees and noted their slow growth will, I think, have 
doubts as to whether the plucking of leaves from planted trees is 
likely to be capable of practical application. In my opinion the 
only way in which the discovery of extracting gutta percha from 
the leaves can, with our present knowledge, prove beneficial is in 
the fact that instead - of wasting the leaves of the trees that are cut 
down, and the gutta extracted from the bark in the usual native 
manner, they also are utilised. 
THE DISSEMINATION OF SEEDS BY NATURAL 
J MEANS. 
The means by which seeds are disseminated in order thar a 
sufficient number may find a suitable spot in which to perpetual 
their kind are numerous and interesting, and have a practical bear- 
Itl 
