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With regard to the Indian rubber tree, the doctor said that it was only one of many trees producing caoutchouc the Ficus elastica, I believe. To produce it the tree is, during the rainy season, pierced, when a yellowish-white coloured and thickish juice runs out into the vessels prepared to receive it.
Immense cargoes are shipped from the town of Para, on the river Amazon, and obtained from the Siphonia elastica." "Are the stems all made of India-rubber?" asked Edith, who thought that was exactly what they looked like. "Are the stems of the maple trees made of maple-sugar?" replied Miss Harson. "The India-rubber is got from its tree as the sugar is from the maple tree.
We found several people encamped here, who were engaged in collecting and preparing the rubber, and thus had an opportunity of observing the process. The tree which yields this valuable sap is the Siphonia elastica, a member of the Euphorbiaceous order; it belongs, therefore, to a group of plants quite different from that which furnishes the caoutchouc of the East Indies and Africa.
The Siphonia elastica grows only on the lowlands in the Amazons region; hitherto, the rubber has been collected chiefly in the islands and swampy parts of the mainland within a distance of fifty to a hundred miles to the west of Para; but there are plenty of untapped trees still growing in the wilds of the Tapajos, Madeira, Jurua, and Jauari, as far as 1800 miles from the Atlantic coast.
Chara elastica; recent, Italy. a. Sessile seed-vessel between the divisions of the leaves of the female plant. b. The Charae inhabit the bottom of lakes and ponds, and flourish mostly where the water is charged with carbonate of lime.
The samples I have seen were white instead of yellow, in large, flat cakes, which would require much trouble to wind off, and the filaments appeared coarse; but this may be partly occasioned by the method of loosening them from the bags, which is by steeping them in hot water. In the description of the Urceola elastica, or caout-chouc-vine, of Sumatra and Pulo Pinang, by Dr.
The tree which welled forth milk when struck by the axe was the Ficus elastica a sort of gigantic vine, as thick as a man's arm, which creeps along the ground, sending forth new roots from the joint, and, climbing at length some lofty tree, expands in branches.
This name is applied to a caoutchouc plantation, the caoutchouc being extracted from the "seringueira" tree, whose scientific name is siphonia elastica. It is said that, by negligence or bad management, the number of these trees is decreasing in the basin of the Amazon, but the forests of seringueira trees are still very considerable on the banks of the Madeira, Purus, and other tributaries.
A favourite resort of these bats is to the lofty india-rubber trees, which on one side overhang the Botanic Gardens of Paradenia in the vicinity of Kandy. Thither for some years past, they have congregated, chiefly in the autumn, taking their departure when the figs of the ficus elastica are consumed.
In fact, the "ficus primoides," the "castilloa elastica," the "cecropia peltats," the "collophora utilis," the "cameraria letifolia," and above all, the "syphonia elastica," which belong to different families, abound in the provinces of South America. And meanwhile, a rather singular thing, there was not a single one to be seen.
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