The Tree that Changed Richard Evans Schultes the World in One Century I can assure you that on that 14th of June ( 1875)( use of their product had been made any- when Mr. Wickham arrived at Kew m a hansom where in the Eastern Hemisphere. When cab with his precious bags of seeds, not even the Columbus arrived in the West Indies, he wildest could have its imagmation contemplated noted that the natives were a result.... playing game in which rubber balls were employed, but - Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer the rubber for these balls came not from Kew Bulletm (1912/, p. 65 Hevea but from Castilla elastica, of the fig History is usually written in the context of family. or Yet it political, social, religious changes. As early as 1755, King John of Portugal well be written from the of view might point tried to foster a rubber industry in Belem do of the effects that plants have had on the de- Para at the mouth of the Amazon River: of mankind and civilization. velopment rubber shoes were manufactured for export It is safe to that no of say smgle species to Portugal, but the quality was so poor that in the short of 100 so plant has, space years, the industry did not prosper. The process of utterly altered lifestyles around the globe as vulcanization, which has made rubber the Hevea a member of the brasihensis, spurge useful product that it is now, had not yet family, which today is the source of 98 per- been discovered. cent of the world’s natural rubber. Stop for a After Goodyear discovered vulcanization and to life without moment try imagine in the 1830s, rubber became a product with rubber! ever-increasing uses in the industrializing The introduction of this Amazonian tree nations, and demand for it increased at a ver- from the wild and its domestication in the tiginous rate. The only source was the wild 19th century was the work of the British bo- stands of Hevea - especially H. brasiliensis the Botanic - tamcal gardens, especially Royal hidden away in the dark corners of the Gardens at Kew, and is unquestionably the vast Amazon forests. The demand for rubber most outstanding example of the value of in Europe and the United States rapidly be- such institutions in life on earth. bettering came so great that production from forest in Rubber-yielding trees and vines grew trees rose from 31 tons in 1827 to 2607 tons no the Old World, yet, curiously, significant in 1856. This dramatic increase was accom- plished by the virtual enslavement of whole tribes of Indians. Tapping the trees in the A group of rubber tappers bringing m therr daily jungles for four or five months a year, away harvest of latex from forest trees m the Amazo- from their agricultural lands and sources of man region of Colombia. R. E. Schultes photo. 4 Natural distribution of Hevea andH. brasihensis. Hevea became known to the scientific community when in 1775 the French nourishment, falling prey to tropical dis- botanist J. B. C. F. Aublet described the eases and malnutrition, and often suffering genus from material collected in French from exposure, mistreatment, torture, or Guiana. He not only described the genus and even assassination if they did not bring in its first species, H. guianensis, but detailed enough rubber, they were being extermi- the native method of exploiting it for rubber nated by this forest industry, directed and appended numerous ethnobotanical data primarily by unscrupulous "rubber-barons" on the use of the seeds by the natives as food. who resided in the cities of Manaos and Twenty-six years later, K. L. Willdenow, a Iquitos, usually in sumptuous luxury. German botanist, described a second The modern age of rubber had its begin- species, H. brasiliensis, from material col- nings in 1876, a "rubber revolution" that lected at the mouth of the Amazon River. was the consequence of an incredible series Subsequent botanical exploration of the of sometimes fortuitous events. Amazon Valley - notably that carried out 5 by the British botanist Richard Spruce - forest circuit, then return to his shack and continued to add new species to the genus, begin the long process of coagulating the which now comprises 10 species and three latex. Large balls of rubber were formed by varieties. pouring the latex little by little over a pole that was rotated in smoke from an in- Not all of the species yield a latex capable rising of producing rubber: only H. guianensis, verted funnel. H. benthamiana, andH. brasihensis have The death knell for this primitive industry sufficient caoutchouc to give a usable rub- was sounded when the era of scientifically ber ; and of these, H. brasiliensis supplies the managed plantation practices began in 1876, best product. the year that rubber seeds were first germi- nated successfully in the Royal Botanic Gar- When m 1823 a Scot, Charles Macintosh, dens at Kew. The domestication of the rub- discovered that rubber would dissolve in ber tree served civilization in two ways. naphtha, it acquired many new uses, leading First, it provided an abundance of high to the establishment of factories in England, qual- rubber at low without which France, and the United States. These fac- ity cost, many of our advances in tories failed, however, because the product great industry, medicine, domestic and still became sticky in the heat and brittle in appliances, transportation the cold. would have been impossible. Second, when plantations finally came into full production This was overcome in 1839 when problem in the second decade of the 1900s, the forest a Bostonian, Charles Goodyear, discovered industry was all but obliterated, with the re- vulcanization, a process that greatly altered sult that thousands of native tappers were the of rubber and physical properties liberated from the intolerable and inhuman changed the history of the significance of exploitation to which they had been sub- this vegetal product and its effect on human jected for nearly 100 years. And, undoubt- life. It led to new and hitherto immediately - edly, whole tribes e.g., the Witotos of the unexpected applications and a host of new northwestern Amazon, a truly noble race of industries. It also the "rubber sparked Indians - were saved from virtual extinc- boom" of the then the source Amazon, only tion. of natural rubber: from the South production Domestication of the rubber tree occurred American forests rapidly increased. at the time the British were seeking new of wild rubber is a difficult Exploitation crops for their tropical colonies. The intro- and The frustratmg operation. natives, living duction of the quinine-bark tree into India the season under such abom- during tapping from the Andes had just been highly success- inable conditions, produced a poor-quality ful. Sir Clements Markham, who had di- The latex was laden product. frequently rected the introduction of that tree, was with bark, dirt, and stones and adulterated convinced that the rubber tree could be de- with other since often the rubbers, tappers veloped as a plantation crop that would be a were if did not punished they procure stipu- good substitute for the coffee crop, which a lated quotas. Furthermore, each individual fungal disease had almost exterminated in had to labor from dawn or until predawn Asia. He had Mr. James Collins prepare a noon to 100 or fewer trees in his nearly tap summary of what was then known about 6 Parts of Hevea brasiliensis, the rubber tree. the Amazon, and he fully supported Mark- ham’s view concerning the future of Hevea rubber. Collins wrote: "In 1870, I came to cultivation. the conclusion that it was necessary to do Several earlier attempts had been made to for the caoutchouc-producing tree what had introduce Hevea seed from Brazil, in 1873 already been done with such happy results and 1875. None were successful. Hevea for the cinchona (quinine) tree." Sir Joseph seed, its latex rich in sugars, quickly fer- Hooker, director of Kew Gardens, knew of ments in the heat of the tropics, and the em- Spruce’s discoveries and studies of Hevea in bryo is killed. But success eventually came. 7 Seeds ofHevea brasiliensis. R. E. Schultes photo. transport, Wickham resolved somehow to surmount this difficulty. Then a fortuitous An Englishman, Henry Wickham, who event happened! In 1876 a steamboat from had spent many years living near the Ama- England had sailed up the Amazon laden zon and Orinoco and who in 18 72 had pub- with cargo; it found no return load. "I de- lished a book on his travels in tropical South termined," Wickham wrote, "to plunge for America, had previously sent seeds of Hevea it. I had no cash on hand. The seed was even to Kew with no success. Fully realizing that then beginning to ripen. I knew that Capt. earlier shipments had failed because of slow Murry must be in a fix, so I wrote chartering 8 9 the ship." Wickham sent out his Indians to collect the seed and pack it properly m wicker baskets. The ship raced downstream from Santarem, 400 miles up the Amazon, and called in at customs in Belem at the river’s mouth. Customs officials, told of the delicacy of the plants "for delivery to Her Britannic Majesty’s own Royal Botanic Gar- dens of Kew," immediately, and with intel- ligence unusual among bureaucratic officials, dispatched the ship, which steamed off to England. All of the earlier shipments had been sent on sailing vessels. The few days saved by using a steamboat ensured successful ger- mination in Kew’s hothouses.