Hevea brasiliensis, a forest tree, which is indigenous to the tropical rain forests of Central and South America and the only major commercial source of natural rubber (NR), is one of the most recently domesticated crop species in the world. The modern age of NR in India actually started during the 1870s when the British successfully transported Hevea seeds from Brazil for planting in the then British India1.'. Rubber seems to be a fairly straightforward word. The French call it Caoutchouc recognizing its historically South American Indian word, meaning weeping wood':", Polyisoprene, especially when chemically modified by vulcanization, has remarkable ability to substantially return to its original shape after.
