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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 6
Textiles.—
Textiles.—
1.Bunkuss.—
In the Bengal Catalogue of Indian products shown at the London Exhibition of 1862 (Section I., pp. 137, 168) mention is made of a grass known by this name, which grows in the Terai, and is used in N.W. India for making ropes. A specimen sent to Kew from Saharunpore, for identification, by Mr. Duthie, proved to be Spodiopogon angusti-folius. Mr. Duthie states that it is also known under the name of Baib grass, and he has furnished the Kew Museum with an interesting series of articles made from it, including, besides rope, shoes, door-mats, floormatting, and a lota-holder for draw-ing water from a well.
2. Curculigo latifolia.—
The Kew Museum is indebted to Mr. F. W. Burbidge (now Curator of the Trinity College Botanic Garden, Dublin) for a very complete series of specimens illustrating the manufacture of cloth in Borneo (where they were obtained by him during his travels) from a species of Curculigo, which has been identified by Mr. Baker with C. latifolia, Dry-and. The Dusan in N.W. Borneo, near Kina Balu, prepare the fibre by macerating and beating the leaves. It is woven into a very close cloth, about ten inches wide, in a loom of very simple construction, such as is used in Brittany for weaving saddle girths. A heavy wooden sword is used for driving close the woof after it is thrown by the shuttle between the threads of the warp. The strong fibrous leaves of Curculigo seychellensis are employed in the Seychelles for wrapping plugs of tobacco (Baker, Flora of Mauritius, p. 368), and this is apparently the only other known instance of the economic use of a hypoxidaceous plant.
3. Ningpo hats.—
In a Foreign Office Report on the trade of Ningpo (Commercial Reports, China, No. 7 (1878) pp. 113, 114), Mr. W. M. Cooper, H.B.M. Consul at Ningpo, referred to these hats as follows:—The export of hats woven by hand from a small species of Carex (sedge) has grown within three years to great proportions, no less than 15,000,000 having this year been exported. The plant is indigenous, and is to be found in damp spots among the hills, but that employed for the manufacture is cultivated in rice grounds. The hats are made by the women and children at their homes, and sold by them at ½d. to 2d. each. They are strong and serviceable, and are bought wholesale by the foreign merchants, who send them to London, whence, I believe, they are shipped, principally to the Southern States of America." These hats were very abundant in London last year, and we thought that specimens obtained for the Kew Museum were made of some kind of
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rush. Mr. Cooper, has, however, obligingly sent us a specimen of the plant actually used for the purpose, which proves to be identical with that from which China matting is made, and which Dr. Hance has determined to be Cyperus tegetiformis, Roxb. The only difference is, that in making the hats the culms are used whole, while for matting they are split into two.