Abstract:
In a recent number of the Philippine Agricultural Review, Vol. XI., 1918, page 13, Mr. P. J. Wester has remarked that existing literature seems to indicate the Coconut palm to have "probably not more than thirty five distinct varieties" and he adds that such is a remarkably small number considering the antiquity of its cultivation and its wide distribution. Whether this be right or not, investigation only can prove. In Singapore Island fourteen exist, twelve differing from each other in the nut, and two differing also in growth. With this issue of the Gardens'  Bulletin figures are given of the nuts of these Singpaore races.

 

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This little study of secondary jungle is a mite only towards the comprehension of the great complex "rain forest" of Malaya. It is an attempt to make use of the clearing of a small area, with a more or less known history, where nature had been for thirty years at her work of reconstruction. Many hundreds of such studies are needed, and the interest in them will grow as the problems to be solved become more and more apparent upon comparison of results. At present such comparison is impossible: for this study is but a beginning.

 

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In the Gardens' Bulletin, Vol. 1, pp. 396 - 399 (1917) an illustrated account of the Lesser Yam - Dioscorea esculenta, (Lour.) Burk., was given. The purpose of that account was to indicate its root-characters and to show how several races, then in cultivation, differed from each other. Those races came from India, French Indo-China and the Philippines islands.  Since 1917 three races from Papua have been introduced into the Botanic Gardens, Singapore, by the kindness of His Excellency Judge J. H. P. Murray, Lieut.-Governor of Papua: they bear names ascribed to the Hanuabada language, and are apparently from the country to the west of Port Moresby.  These three races are figured on the plate with this issue. One of them is quite unlike any of the races experimentally grown earlier; the other two are like the Philippine race "Buga" in general characters. All three produce male flowers, and are wild in Papua. This production of male flowers in wild races is one of the most curious things about Dioscorea esculenta, which otherwise produces no flowers at all. To understand how the female flowers alone should have been lost is impossible with our present knowledge.

 

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The daily round in the Botanic Gardens, Singapore, with visits of inspection to Penang or to other places in the Peninsula have afforded scattered opportunities during seven years, of making notes upon the behaviour of insects in regard to flowers. These notes will be brought into one view here.

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It has long been a commonly observed fact in the history of many crops that at first, with only small and isolated plantings, there is likely to be little if any trouble with diseases and pests. This has often resulted in giving planters ill-founded hopes and false assurances as to the future. As the area planted is extended and large sections of country become occupied with the crop, endemic fungi and insects gradually become adapted to it, and others slowly filter in from abroad. The latter occurance is quite inevitable in new countries since the people of such countries cannot be convinced of the necessity of strict plant quarantine regulations efficiently administered, until driven to it by bitter experience - too late.

 

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Planted in the exact centre of a small rectangular bit of ground close to the office in the Economic Garden stood a rather small rubber tree which bore the number 1844. Its dark grey bark attracted the attention to it ; and when it was more closely examined the foliage was seen to differ from that of the neighbouring trees of Hevea brasiliensis. Its history was unrecorded: but by the way in which it stood, it suggested that it came by no accident, but was set in its position as something apart from the other rubber trees.  When it flowered in 1917 it was seen that the flowers removed it far from H. brasiliensis.  The seeds also were found small, though not outside the extraordinarily wide limits in which H. brasiliensis varies: when it was tapped the latex was found to be yellow, meagre in amount and to remain tacky, with little elasticity. It appeared to be an undesirable type; but it was determined not to destroy it without enquiry. Flowering specimens were therefore dried and sent to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where Sir David Prain has been so good as to have it determined as Hevea confusa, Hemsl. The tree has now been destroyed on account of its proximity to the seed bearing trees, lest it should bring about cross-pollination; but seedling have been raised in order that if any purpose is found for it, the species may be available.

 

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The following enumeration is of fungi, collected with two exceptions, by Professor C. F. Baker during his short service with the Government of the Straits Settlements: and enumerated by Prof. Saccardo in the Bulletino del Orto Botanico Teale di Napoli, Vol. VI, (1918) at the pages given after each name. In the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Straits Branch, No. 78, 1918, pp. 67 - 72, will be found descriptions of sixteen others under the title of Some Singapore Boletinae - a joint paper by M. N. Patouillard and Prof. C. F. Baker ; and again in the Bulletin de la Societe Mycologique de France XXXIV, 2e fasc. is described by M. Patouillard a further fungus Echinodia Theobromae from Cacao branches in Singapore  

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When reporting upon the cultivation of the Greater Yam in the Botanic Gardens, Singapore, in 1917, attention was called to the circumstance that the plants had been grown spaced 3 by 2 feet, and that in competition between each other at such a distance they had produced smaller tubers than in the earlier years. But space forbad again in 1918 that the distances between them should be increased, and consequently the yields of 1816, for instance, were not attained. Moreover there was not available quite so much manure ; and the want of it has also had an effect. The 1918 crop was consequently less abundant than the crops of 1916 and 1917.|

 

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The purpose of this note is to illustrate some unfamiliar cultivated Dioscoreas, namely; - 1. the white or eight months Guinea Yam. 2.  the yellow or twelve months Guinea Yam, - Dioscorea cayenensis, Lamk. 3.  a Hai-nan Yam, probably D. belophylloides, Prain and Burkill. 4 an African Yam, D. dumetorum, Pax. 5.  an Indain Yam, D. pentaphylla, Linn., var, Linnaei, Prain and Burkill. 6.  a Malayan Yam, D. pentaphylla, Linn., var. malaica, Prain and Burkill. 7 and 8 Philippine Yam, D. pentaphylla, Linn., var. and an ally.

 

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This is the third of a series of reports upon the cultivation of the Greater Yam in the Gardens, Singapore. The first was printed in this Bulletin, Vol. I., No. 9, pp. 297 - 304. and in it outline camera lucida drawings of sixteen races were given. The second report was printed in Vol. I., double No. 11 - 12, pp. 371 - 196, with illustrations from photographs of fifteen races upon six plates. In this report fourteen races are illustrated upon four plates, no. 76, appearing upon two of them. Besides these three reports, there is another in the Philippine Agriculturist and Forester, Vol. III., 1915, pp. 205 - 209, with illustrations of seven races. When the first report in the Gardens' Bulletin and that in the Philippine Agriculturist and Forester were published, the numbering system of the Gardens had not been made consistent, and was not referred to: therefore it is now convenient to draw into one list the races already illustrated, - being in all thirty-eight. This list is printed as an appendix on pp. 12 - 44.

 

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The following taken from the Agricultural News, West Indies, of August 11th, 1917, Vol. XVI, pp. 254 - 255, is worth reading and digesting ; for in Malaya, damping-off is one of the greatest troubles that a gardener has to contend with. The method recommended in it has been tried in the Botanic Gardens, Singapore; and so far there is nothing to be said against it except the necessity of teaching the ignorant tukang kebun to handle the Sulphuric Acid respectfully; and as the use of burnt earth can be avoided in some measure, pecuniary gain is brought into sight.

 

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The year 1919, the centenary of the founding of the settlement of Singapore, brings in the sixtieth year of Botanic Gardens; and their early history is becoming obscure. Moreover the records are only in the two older Singapore newspapers, which is laborious to consult, and of which single files exist. These two reasons enough for reproducing here six reports, and for bringing them into one view by a brief introduction, with quotations from the old papers.

 

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Catochrysops pandava, Horsf., is a beautiful little butterfly when seen with its silky lavender blue wings expanded; but it is very destructive in a garden to Cycads: for the caterpillar is a gourmet and feeds on the youngest leaves, utterly destroying them, so that the plant is left untidy for the months which pass it until it can produce a fresh crop. How untidy it can be, is seen in the accompanying plate. Cycads which had been attacked by the insect and had no young leaves left, produced in the Botanic Gardens a new crop at the end of three months, often only to be attacked again.

 

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Upon a visit of inspection to Malacca in July, 1917 it was observed that some pest had been attacking the Coconut palms in a serious way between Malacca town and Tanjong Kling, seven miles distant. The effect of the attack was apparent to any one, even at some distance, by the brown colour of all the old leaves; every palm in the area of attack appeared as if scorched, appeared as if attacked by the moth Brachartona which produces this appearance: but on examination of the trees it was obvious that Barchartona had not done the damage. The young leaves were found to be free, for the most part, from any cause of injury, but on the intermediate leaves sharply defined areas of dead tissue were to be seen: and on the older leaves these areas had become confluent, and the tissues were generally dead and often tattered. The cause of the injury was not detected on the first visit, but the limits of its attack were ascertained as above, Malacca town to Tanjong Kling, and inland only about a mile. Arrangements were then made that an officer of the Department, namely Professor Baker, should throughly investigate the attack by an early visit; but advance information to the effect that the Government of the Philippines intended to recall him interfered with the plan in such a way that the next inspection in Malacca only took place in December, when the writer was fortunate enough to find the pest, - a beetle, - mature and on the wing. This beetle proves to be Promecotheca cumingii. 

 

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Rainfall at the Director's house, Botanic Gardens, Singapore, during the first half of the year, 1917, in inches. Readings taken always at 8 a.m. and credited to the date in which twenty-four hours begin.