ABSTRACT
There are hundreds of plants found across the world that produce a latex sap that can be made into rubber, but the species that has played the most important role in human history has been the Pará or hevea rubber tree, a majestic tree extending to the top of the tropical forest canopy in South America. The production of rubber products was a skill known to the ancient Aztecs, Incas and Maya of Mesoamerica, Central and South America. In the early 1820s, Charles Macintosh began producing raincoats by dissolving rubber in naphtha and spreading the molten mess between layers of cloth. Charles Macintosh and James F. Hancock ultimately teamed up when it was discovered that Hancock's rubber was superior to that available to Macintosh. To meet the ever-escalating demand for rubber, wild hevea trees were tapped across vast tracts of Amazonia in South America.
