^7 
Curculigo Fibre. — The common jungle plants Curculigo recur- 
vata and C. lati folia and villas a known to the Malays as Lumbah, 
produce from their leaves a strong fibre used by the Dyaks for cloth 
and fishipg nets. The plant is generally to be found in shady 
places, and is known by its tufts of large flaccid lanceolate leaves, 
plicate and dark green, usually more or less pubescent beneath. 
The flowers are yellow, borne in a tuft at the base of the leaves, 
sessile in C. latifolia and villosa and borne on a longer or shorter 
peduncle in C. recurvata. The latter species is the biggest and its 
leaves are four feet and a half long (exclusive of the stalk which may 
be two feet long), and eight inches across the middle. The 
leaves steeped in water took fourteen days to soak before the soft 
parts of the leaves could be washed away, after which it could 
easily be rubbed off by hand. The leaves seem too flaccid to work 
by machinery. Lumbah fibre has never come into the market so far 
as I know. . It is, in fact, rather troublesome to make, as owing to 
the flaccidity of its leaves it cannot be worked by any of the 
ordinary machines, and is always extracted by hand. The leaves 
are first soaked in water and then beaten to get rid of the cellular 
substance between the 6 bres. 
I planted some years ago a bed of C. recurvata , in full sun in good 
soil in order to see whether the plant would grow and giye good 
returns under that treatment, but the plant did not seem to like full 
exposure to the sun. It grew steadily, but the leaves were short, 
and not veiy abundant. Should a reasonable price be obtained for 
this fibre, it might be worth while getting it collected by natives, 
and also planting.it in dense shade, or perhaps better along the jun- 
gle edges, where it seems to grow very fine and strong. It requires 
no care under these circumstances and can look after itself very 
well. > 3 
. Experiments are being made with it at the Botanic Gardens, both 
in retting the leaves in water and also by splitting the leaves up and 
^ S ? aS t0 ^ orm P er haps a substitute for Raphia bast for 
which the demand at present is muchprv excess of the supply. 
? 1£ lu 0p -r? 0 i SE ’ , wh ° hnows the plant well in Sarawak, tells me 
that the Dyaks there use the fibre in a very curious way. It is 
water-proof, and the cloth-weavers twist the Lumbah fibre round 
the threads of the cloth they do not wish to be dyed by any given 
colour, and after the cloth lias been dipped in, say, red dye, they take 
it out and remove the Lumbah fibre so that the hitherto uncoloured 
threads may be dyed in blue or other colour, by dipping the cloth 
again in the latter dye* _• r s 
Other tribes weave the fibre into cloth. I am not certain which 
species the Dyaks use in this way, but it is probably C. recurvata . 
TILE POTS FOR CASUARXNA SEEDLINGS. 
In Mr. Hudson’s article on Casuarina cultivation he describes 
Uie tile pots he used, and now writes a suggestion which may be 
