Just outside the gates of the museum is a lonely tree. Not a big 'WOW' but a significant tree that changed the course of Malaysia's economy in the early 1900's. This is a rubber tree and one of two of the oldest rubber trees in Peninsula that have survived the years. Sir Hugh Low, the British Resident of Perak of that time, encouraged the growth of rubber trees as the car industry expanded rapidly in the west. Soon jungles were converted into plantations, and many areas that were once virgin forests were open for commercial use. Hugh Low planted a number of rubber trees in his garden in Kuala Kangsar. Another old rubber tree from those experimental days stands by the district office in town at the intersection of Jalan Raja Chulan and Jalan Tun Abdul Razak. However, the trees don't look too well, perhaps having been hemmed in by the expansion of roads and tarring of the ground around it.

It is one of nine seedlings brought over from Brazil by the English botanist H.N. Ridley (Henry Nicholas Ridley) in 1877, and is one of the two oldest rubber trees still standing in Malaysia.

This rubber tree helped usher in the rubber plantation era of Malaysia in the late 19th and early 20th Century, making Malaysia the world's largest producer of rubber at one time. This was made possible by the encouragement of Sir Hugh Low, the Resident of Perak, who planted several in his garden in Kuala Kangsar.