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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 6

3. Hevea in British Guiana.—

3. Hevea in British Guiana.—

Mr. Prestoe, Government botanist of Trinidad, whose mission to British Guiana has already been adverted to, informs me that he met with a species of Hevea at the penal settlement on the Mazaruni river. Mr. Prestoe writes to me:—"The three plants you kindly sent me last year enabled me to detect the tree on two islands in the Essequibo—of course at a distance. I secured some 50 seedlings. Darkness and the departure of the steamer prevented my doing more; but I have no doubt, from what I saw, that this tree exists in the forests of Guiana in unbounded plenty. Some of the leading colonists knew of the India-rubber being sometimes collected by the Indians, but I met with no one who had any notion of the tree producing it, the supposition being that it was produced by a species of large-leaved Ficus."

Mr. Prestoe forwarded leaves of the Hevea collected by him. It is identical with a plant collected in British Guiana by Dr. Hancock, and is probably Hevea pauciflora. It is remarkable that the existence and uses of so important a plant in the forests of British Guiana should have so long remained in oblivion, and Mr. Prestoe's detecting it during his brief visit to the colony is an instance of the services which botanical science in the hands of an energetic official can render to colonial industry. The matter is of the more importance since the exportation from the colony of Gum Balata, which at one time attracted considerable attention, has now almost ceased.