s of the yam and potato kind, under the general name
of ubi, is almost endless; the dioscorea being generally termed ubi
kechil (small), and the convolvulus ubi gadang (large); some of which
latter, of the sort called at Bencoolen the China-yam, weigh as much as
forty pounds, and are distinguished into the white and the purple. The
fruit of the trong (melongena), of which the egg-plant is one species, is
much eaten by the natives, split and fried. They are commonly known by
the name of brinjals, from the beringelhas of the Portuguese.

DYE-STUFFS.

(PLATE 8. Marsdenia tinctoria, OR BROAD-LEAFED INDIGO.
E.W. Marsden delt. Swaine fct.
Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)

INDIGO.

Tarum or indigo (Indigofera tinctoria) being the principal dye-stuff they
employ, the shrub is always found in their planted spots; but they do not
manufacture it into a solid substance, as is the practice elsewhere. The
stalks and branches having lain for some days in water to soak and
macerate, they then boil it, and work among it with their hands a small
quantity of chunam (quick lime, from shells), with leaves of the paku
sabba (a species of fern) for fixing the colour. It is afterwards drained
off, and made use of in the liquid state.

There is another kind of indigo, called in Sumatra tarum akar, which
appears to be peculiar to that country, and was totally unknown to
botanists to whom I showed the leaves upon my return to England in the
beginning of the year 1780. The common kind is known to have small
pinnated leaves growing on stalks imperfectly ligneous. This, on the
contrary, is a vine, or climbing plant, with leaves from three to five
inches in length, thin, of a dark green, and in the dried state
discoloured with blue stains. It yields the same dye as the former sort;
they are prepared also in the same manner, and used indiscriminately, no
preference being given to the one above the other, as the natives
informed me, excepting inasmuch as the tarum akar, by reason of the
largeness of the foliage, yields a greater proportion of sediment.
Conceiving it might prove a valuable plant in our colonies, and that it
was of importance in the first instance that its identity and class
should be accurately ascertained, I procured specimens of its
fructification, and deposited them in the rich and extensively useful
collection of my friend Sir Joseph Banks. In a paper on the Asclepiadeae,
highly interesting to botanical science, communicate