6 
PREOOEEDINGS OP THE SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION. 
thus it may be expected its cultivation will be most suc- 
cessfully dealt with in countries of sub-tropical conditions 
like those of the parts in which it is indigenous. It is a 
plant, however, like the majority of plants originally inhab- 
iting sub-tropical regions, of very elastic constitution, con- 
forming itself to the conditions of a purely tropical country 
apparently with little deterioration. But under such in- 
fluences its habit of growth becomes perpetual, and when 
not arrested by unusual drought, or by an undue produc- 
tion of abortive flower-bearing processes, to which under 
the tropical conditions they are very liable, the stems, in- 
stead of being simple, or without branches — a character due 
to their duration for but one season, and essential to the 
cultivator — assume the character in two or three seasons 
of a large branching shrub. There is, however, at the 
same time a sign of deterioration in the tenuity of growth, 
induced without doubt by the annual round of tropical, 
and to the Ramie plant, unnatural heat. 
I am not aware that the cultivation of the Ramie plant 
has ever been attempted in the Island on any considerable 
scale. It has thriven, however, for some years in the 
Botanic Garden, and although it has not received any 
special attention in cultivation for the production of fibre, 
its capabilities in regard to growth can be judged of from 
its doings there. 
As compared with tropical herbaceous plants generally, 
and especially with indigenous species of its own genus, 
it is a decidedly slow grower. Its present rate of growth 
would not justify an expectation that more than a double 
production of stems four or five feet length could take 
place annually. The size of the stems towards the base 
