A WATER YIELDING PLANT

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 5731, 28 October 1905, Page 16

A WATER YIELDING PLANT

In a paper read before the Bombay Natural History Sociotv, Mr G. M. Ryan epoko of the water-yielding plants in the Thanna forests. He says of one of them the "Calcopteris (Nat. Ord. Combretaceae), called XJkshi in Thana, is one of the most interesting shrubs of ,the district. 5 ' In some parte of India it grows as a diffuse, dense shrub; in other places it is scandent; in Thana both forms of it are found/ It is very ornamental, and boars pale golden flowers. The scandent habit appears to be most natural to it, but is checked by yearly attention. When a climber, the Ukshi "ascends the bole of the tree in a characteristic manner, climbing from left to right. Having established it. self in the forest in some spot not far from a tree, it extends its loading shoot (ill it reaches the branch of an adjoining one It proceeds to embrace the bole at first in several loose and then to stretch its leader put as if in search of a further exterior support, failing to find which it returns to the original bole and forms three or four constricting coils round it. continuing to adopt tho left-tonight habit. Releasing its grasp again, it succeeds by a series of wide curves or < swoops in reaching the illuminated heights of the crown of the tree. Here it commences to form a network of branches spreading across the crown, and perhaps overhanging it, until at length some of the branches are suspended in graceful festoons. A tree thus invaded naturally is unable to expand, and eventually dies, blit the climber iteelf does not stop its course/’ Its lower branches root, and it also reproduces itself by root suckers. Occasionally a branch will coil tightly round one of the older scandent shoots. Tho IJkehi stems sometimes attain to a girth of feet, and resemble ropes loosely stretched between the ground and tree tops, and between trees and form swings and ladders for the monkeys. The smaller twigs are utilised for native tooth brushes. "The most interesting characteristic of the plant is its faculty of storing in its climbing stems a liquid resembling water which is commonly drunk by the wild tribes/’