10 M. J. C. DE MELLO AND MK. B. SPRUCE 0:N^ PAPAYACEiE. 



a short while to allow the milk to be drawn away, which would 

 otherwise scorch the lips like wild pine-apples. Not that this acrid 

 and slightly bitter milk is unwholesome ; on the contrary, its w^ell- 

 known anthelmintic property is perhaps the cause why eating the 

 papaw-fruit is not known to produce ascarides, as indulgence in 

 many other tropical fruits, such as mangos, is apt to do. Koche- 

 fort says it fortifies the stomach and aids digestion. He adds 

 that a sort of marmalade was prepared from it, wnth sugar and 

 spices, as it it is to this day *. 



The fully grown but not ripe fruit is an excellent vegetable, 

 cooked in the same way as yegetable-marrow, which it much re- 

 sembles in flavour. Meat boiled along with it is thereby ren- 

 dered tender — an eifect probably owing also to the milk, which, 

 according the analysis of Vauquelin, is a highly animalized sub- 

 stance, much Resembling animal albumen. The same effect is 

 said to follow from even hanging freshly-killed meat in the 

 Papaw tree. This I have not seen tried- but I know that 

 a tough parrot or macaw grows tender when wrapped for some 

 time in the leaves, either before cooking or whilst being cooked: ^ 



The leaves have, besides, slight detergent properties, and are 

 used in the place of or along with soap. In Venezuela a decoc- 

 tion of them is used to expel worms, in preference to the mUk of 

 the green fruit or of the trunk. 



Powls are very fond of the male flowers. I have seen them 

 watch the day through under a tree from which every puff of 

 wind brought down a shower of flowers, and fight for their pos- 

 session. 



Where Pauavaceae most abound 



eastern and western sides, un to 8000 



The acridity of the milky juice is said to be excessive in some oC the acu- 

 leate species, i. e. in the Jaracatice, What species is that spoken of by Poppig 

 under the name ** Chamburu," which (he says) is looked on by the inhabitants 

 of Maynas with as much dread as the Upas tree of Java, that the juice which 

 spirted over him when he cut the tree caused itching on the face and blistered 

 the hands, that the flowers smell of human excrement, and that the firuit is 

 not touched by any animal but a sort of ant ? There is probably here a 

 little of that exaggeration wherof we travellers are not unjustly accused. I 

 lived in Maynas for two whole years, and gathered there four species of Carica, 

 but I never saw or heard of any possessing those deleterious properties. Pop- 

 pig supposes his plant to be the Carica digitata of Aublet, which Martius 



enumerates among those whose " fructufi crudus assatus et coctus comeditur** 

 (Sun. Mat. Med, Tea. Bras, n. 23V 



