350 URTIGAGEM 



Governmeut sent to Kew further specimens of Ipoh poison, 

 which were again examined by Dr. Ringer with entirely 

 negative results. Botanists were not, however, unprepared for 

 this result. The Dutch botanist, Blume, in his fine work 

 ' Rumphia,^ has given an elaborate account of the Javanese Upas 

 and of the tree which yields it (pp. 46—59, tt. 22, 23), but he 

 points out that Rumphius, our earliest authority on Malayan 

 botany, distinguished two kinds of Upas trees, which he termed 

 Arbor toxicaria femina andtnas respectively. 'K^xvcv^\\^x%\ femina 

 was destitute of any poisonous qualities^ and Blume has 

 described it as a distinct species under the name of A. innoxia 

 {RumpMa, pp. 171—173, t. 54). He received specimens from 

 the island of Timor, where Spanoghe* found that the sap was 

 destitute of any poisonous effect on animals ; he also gives 

 Celebes as a locality for the innocuous plant. Other botanists 

 have not, however, found themselves able to attach much weight 

 to the distinctive characters pointed out by Blume, and there 

 can be no doubt that what weighed principally in his mind was 

 the remarkable difference in the properties of the two forms. 

 Species are, however, made by botanists on structural (morpholo- 

 gi9al) differences and not on physiological. In the same 

 species of Cinchona it is now known that there are the widest 

 differences in the amount and even nature of the alkaloids 

 which can be extracted from the bark. An equally striking, 

 and even better known instance of differences in properties, 

 unaccompanied by any difference in external characters, is 

 afforded by two well-known British umbelliferous plants, 

 CEnanthe crocata and Cicuta virosa, which Sir R. Christison 

 found to be innocuous when grown near Edinburgh. 



Brandis in his 'Forest Flora' has identified with A. innoxia the 

 A, mccidora of South-west India. According to Beddome, this is 

 " the largest tree of the vergreen forests of the Western Ghauts, 

 and the hills bet weem tnem and the Coast." Sacks are made of the 

 thick wooll y fibrous inner bark. The method is thus described 



♦ Spanoghe's account of the innocuous Upas of Timor is printed, to- 

 gether with that «f Leschenauit on the virulent kind, in Hooker's Companion 

 to ih€ Boianical Magazine, Vol, I., pp. 308—317- 



