Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstra17181886roya).pdf/509



To his Annual Report on the Forest Department for 1886, Mr. CANTLEY, Superintendent of the Botanical Gardens, Singapore, has added some notes on Economic Plants-notes to which it seems desirable to give wider publicity than can be obtained by incorporation in a volume of "Proceedings of the Legislative Council." They are, therefore, reprinted here.

The introduction of trees and plants into countries in which they are not indigenous often involves, if the acclimatisation. is successful, a growth of nomenclature which creates puzzles for future philologists. "Tobacco” and ananas "have gradually been adopted, in varying forms, by all the languages. of the East, but what are we to say of "jamrose," the name given in Mauritius to one of the jambu family, perhaps the rose-apple (jambosa vulgaris), which seems to be an odd mixture of the Malay and English words?

In Penang, where the cho-cho (sechium edule) is called "the Bainie fruit," a name has been established which will perhaps find a place some day in dictionaries and glossaries. The vegetable in question was first grown at Bellevue on Penang Hill in 1865 by the Recorder, Sir BENSON MAXWELL, to whom one ripe specimen was presented by Mr. ROBERT BAIN, a merchant in the island. The name of the new pro- duct was not known, and it was christened by the children of the family after the donor. The plant has grown freely on Penang Hill ever since, and is known both to Europeans and natives in Penang by the name invented in the nursery of the Recorder's family.

What is now being done by a Government Department in