129 
Ceylon Exhibition. The account is a full one of the exhibition and 
the discussions on various points of Agricultural work in Ceylon 
and the speeches at the dinner that followed. 
The work is illustrated by photographs of the various people 
connected with the show, the exhibition-pavilion, and some of the 
exhibits and machinery, and there are also maps showing the 
distribution of rubber plantations in some parts of the Malay 
Peninsula. The book contains a good deal of interesting informa- 
tion and is nicely got up. 
H. N. Ridley. 
THE OIL-GRASSES 
The Kew Bulletin No. 8 of 1906 which has just appeared is 
occupied by a very interesting article by Dr. STAPF on the oil- 
grasses of India and Ceylon. The history of these grasses and 
their synonymy hitherto terribly confused has been very carefully 
worked out, and the correct names definitely settled. Twelve oil 
yielding grasses are known of which’ ten belong to the genus 
Cymbopogon , (formerly often included under Andropogon ) one 
species of Vztiveria and one species of Andropogon > only four 
kinds however are worked commercially. 
Cymbopogon Schoenanthus. The Camel hayfis an Arabian species, 
formerly used by the Romans and Greeks fqr flavouring wine, and 
in medecine, and it has been found mixed with other plants laid as 
offerings in the form of funeral' wreaths on the Sarcophagi of the 
King’s of Thebes, entombed between 1200 and 1000 B.C. A 
little of its oil appears to be made in the Punjab, , but it has been 
quite neglected in commerce for several centuries. 
C. Iwarancusa , is a native of Northern India, and nothing much 
is known of its use except medicinally being used by natives of 
that part in fever, hence its name Jwara-ancusa, lit. fever restrainer. 
Cymbopogon Nardus is the well known Citronella grass, which 
is a native of Ceylon, and appears to have been known by the end 
of the sixteenth century, being cultivated near Colombo. Later 
writers confused it with Lemon-grass and Malabar-grass, but the 
confusion has been unravelled. It is first mentioned as cultivated 
in the Malay Peninsula in Penang*in 1872, by GLADSTONE in a 
paper in the Journal of the Chemical Society. In *Java it appears 
only to have been introduced in 1891, but this may be doubted, 
as the plant is well known to all the Malay races, under the name of 
Sereh wangi. It is however only used medicinally, being too strong 
for eating or flavouring purposes, for which Lemon-grass is used. 
Two kinds of Citronella grass are known, viz: Maha Pengiri and 
Lenabatu or Lana Batu Pengiri. The former is apparently the 
plant grown here. It is described as a surface feeder which soon 
