139 
POISONOUS BEANS. 
The danger of the commonly cultivated Linia b^in, Phaseohis 
lunatus has been pointed out in previous numbers of the Bulletin, 
the danger lying in the fact that in certain forms of the plant, the 
beans contain a glucoside accompanied with a ferment (enzyme) 
which on the addition of water produces hydrocyanic acid. Further 
experiments with these beans have been m 4 de and the results 
published in the Bulletin des Sciences Pharm, 13,7 & 8, by M. L. 
■Guignard. It is shown that all . forms of this bean contain the 
glucoside, and produce prussic acid, but the amount varies in 
different forms of the bean. In cultivated varieties it is scarcely 
perceptible, in wild or semiwild forms it is much larger and very 
dangerous to health. In Java heaps it ranges from '06 to *32 per 
cent. Boiling the beans does not make them safe to eat, most of 
the compound is dissolved but not destroyed and if taken internally 
the digestive organs and blood containing ferments capable of 
acting on the glucoside can produce the prussic acid in the body 
not only the beans themselves but the water they have been boiled 
in may prove fatal if taken internally. Red and white Burmah 
beans only yield ■ 002 per cent, prussic acid. The Council of Hygiene 
in Paris has on the strength of these discoveries recommended the 
prohibition of the importation of Java beans and the admission of 
Burmese beans only on a certificate of origin and analysis. 
RUBBER IN NEW GUINEA. 
Dr. Paul Preuss whose work in the Agriculture of the German 
Colonies is well known, writes i a a letter from Berlin : 
“I have tapped Hevea, Ficus elastica and Castilloa elastica in 
our plantations in New Guinea and with ve,ry satisfying results. 
The Hevea rubber is valued and paid for like first class Straits 
rubber. The Ficus rubber is almost as good and fetches only six 
pence a pound less. Castilloa gets four shillings up to five shillings 
a pound. 
Tapping on a large scale is to begin this year, and next year I 
shall go to New Guinea again. I am astonished on reading what 
good success you have had in sending these seeds packed in moist 
charcoal powder even to Jamaica.” 
This looks as if Rubber Cultivation had come to stay in New 
Guinea, in German territory at least. 
H. N. R. 
Fruiting of Crinum Northianum. 
• 
The handsome Crinum. — C. Northianum was described in the 
Bulletin of 1904, p.310. In was sent from Kuching in Sarawak 
to the Botanic Gardens that year by the Right Reverend Bishop 
HOSE, and a number of plants were planted in an open damp bed 
