Abstract
AMONGST the botanical collections formed in 1852 by Dr. J. M. Bigelow, whilst attached to the Mexican Boundary Survey, were specimens of a shrub known to the Mexicans as “guayule,” afterwards described by Prof. Asa Gray as Parthenium argentatum. No mention, however, was made of its rubber-bearing qualities. It was not until 1876 that public attention was directed to guayule rubber by an exhibit sent to the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in that year. The country peon had, it appeared, for long been in the habit of making playing balls and other articles by the “communal mastication “of the bark of this shrub, and it was by that means sufficient was obtained for the above-mentioned exhibit. Investigation showed that the plant was capable of producing in the neighbourhood of ten per cent, of its weight of dry rubber, and that it grew in vast abundance in the desert country of northern Mexico.
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The Rubber-Producing Plant of the Mexican Deserts . Nature 88, 215–216 (1911). https://doi.org/10.1038/088215a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/088215a0