244 



loftiest trees, often quite simple and unbranched for a length of a 

 hundred feet from the root, but curved and winding in the most varied 

 forms. The large, shining, green leaves alternate with the long and 

 stout tendrils with which it takes firm hold, and greenish white heads 

 of pleasant- smelling flowers hang pendant from it. This plant, be- 

 longing to the Apocynacese, is the Tjettek of the natives (Strychnos 

 Tieute, Lesch.), from the roots of which the dreadful Upas Radia, or 

 sovereign poison, is concocted. A slight wound from a weapon poi- 

 soned with this, — a little arrow made of hard wood, and shot from 

 the blow-tube, as by the South Americans, — makes the tiger tremble, 

 stand motionless a minute, then fall as though seized with vertigo, and 

 die in brief but violent convulsions. The shrub itself is harmless, and 

 he whose skin may have been touched with its juice need fear no 

 consequences. As we go forward, we meet with a beautiful slender 

 stem, which overtops the neighbouring plants. Perfectly cylindrical, 

 it rises sixty or eighty feet smooth and without a branch, and bears 

 an elegant hemispherical crown, which proudly looks down on the 

 more humble growths around, and the many climbers struggling up 

 its stem. Woe to him who heedlessly should touch the milk-sap that 

 flows abundantly from its easily wounded bark. Large blisters, pain- 

 ful ulcers, like those produced by our poisonous sumach, only more 

 dangerous, are the inevitable consequences. This is the Antiar of 

 the Javanese, the Pohon Upas (signifying poison-tree) of the Malays, 

 the Ipo of Celebes and the Philippines (Antiaris toxicaria, Lesch.). 

 From it comes the common Upas (anglice poison), which is especially 

 employed for poisoning arrows, a custom which appears to have ex- 

 tended formerly throughout all the Sunda islands, but which is now, 

 since the introduction of fire-arms, only to be met with among the 

 savages of the rugged and inaccessible mountains of the interior of 

 the island."— p. 203. 



Turning from these envenomed denizens of the tropical forests, we 

 find, in the ninth lecture, an interesting and agreeable " Sketch of the 

 Cactus Tribe," an order of plants possessingpropertiesthe very opposite 

 to those w T e have just been considering, though in form many of its mem- 

 bers closely resemble some of the singular leafless Euphorbias. None of 

 the Cactaceae are poisonous; the juices of all are more or less agreeable; 

 while the beauty of their flowers, combined with the extreme oddity 

 and eccentricity of their varied forms, renders them objects of admira- 

 tion and curiosity with all lovers of plants. Our author has devoted 

 much attention to this bizarre tribe ; and his elaborate memoir upon 

 their anatomy is referred to with approbation by Lindley, in the 



