MEDICINAL PLANTS. 173 



good for toothache," and with that one has to 

 be content. 



To become acquainted with their poison plants 

 is, of course, still more difficult. I have only 

 been told of one whether truly or not I cannot 

 say. It is the Ancylanthus Monteiroi, and the 

 poison is contained in the root. It is a curious- 

 looking, straggling bush with small whitish-green 

 fluffy leaves, the under-side very soft and white, 

 bearing a long narrow bell-shaped canary-coloured 

 flower, greenish at the tip. It has a small round 

 fruit not unlike a medlar, and so eagerly sought 

 by the birds that in order to obtain the seeds 

 I had to tie the unripe fruit up in muslin. 



Another curious plant grows here, the Bryo- 

 phyllum, whose leaves if laid on moist soil 

 often produce young plants at all the notches. 

 Reading this, I gathered some leaves of a fleshy 

 plant somewhat answering the description, and 

 placed them on damp sand, and in about a 

 fortnight had the pleasure of seeing a tiny plant 

 appear, sending down its little rootlets into the 

 sand ; it did not, however, come from a notch 



