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(butter) in milk, the caoutchouc-globules rise to the surface of the 

 milk-sap of plants when left to stand, here form a cream and coa- 

 lesce, and cannot, any more than butter, be separated again into their 

 distinct globules." The principal part of the caoutchouc used in this 

 country is obtained from Siphonia elastica, a member of the Euphor- 

 biaceous group, but that of the best quality seems to be furnished by 

 Cynanchum ovalifolium, an Apocynaceous species native to Pulo 

 Penang. But while all three orders contain certain members whose 

 sap is wholesome and even nutritious, as that of the cow-tree, they all 

 abound in the most deadly poisons : witness among others the 

 Wourari poison, the mode of preparing which by the Indians, and 

 their use of it for poisoning their arrows, has been well described 

 by Schomburgk, and quoted in a former number of the ' Phytologist ' 

 (i. 47). As a pendant to that account we may give the following 

 graphic sketch of a Javanese forest : — 



" Two very different trees grow in those little visited primeval 

 forests of Java. All the paths leading to them are closed and watched, 

 like those leading to the gates of the Holy of Holies. With fire and 

 axe must the road be made through the impenetrably interwoven 

 mass of Lianes, the Paullinias, with their clusters of great scarlet 

 blossoms several feet long, the Cissi, or wild vines, on the wide- 

 spread creeping roots of which thrives the giant flower of the Rafflesia 

 Arnoldi. Palms, with spines and thorns, rush-like plants, with cutting- 

 leaves, wounding like knives, warn the intruder back by their attacks, 

 and in every part of the thicket threaten the fearful nettles formerly 

 mentioned. Great black ants, whose painful bite tortures the wanderer, 

 countless swarms of tormenting insects pursue him. Are these obsta- 

 cles overcome ? — yet follow the dense bundles of bamboo stems, as 

 thick as a man's arm, and often fifty feet high, the firm glassy bark of 

 which repels even the axe. At last the way is opened, and the ma- 

 jestic aisles of the true primeval forest now display themselves. 

 Gigantic trunks of the bread-fruit, of the iron-like teak (Tectonia 

 grandis), of Leguminosae, with their beautiful blossoms, of Barringto- 

 nias, figs and bays, form the columns which support the massive green 

 vault. From branch to branch leap lively troops of apes, provoking 

 the wanderer by throwing fruit upon him. From a moss-clad rock 

 the melancholy orang-outang l'aises himself gravely on his staff, and 

 wanders into deeper thickets. All is full of animal life ; a strong con- 

 trast to the desert and silent character of many of the primeval forests 

 of America. Here a twining, climbing shrub, with a trunk as thick 

 as one's arm, coils round the columns of the dome, overpassing the 



