1837] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



S63 



this veiretable milk, consider it as a wholesome 

 aliment. All the milky juices of plants boinir 

 acrid, bitter, and moreorless poisonous, this asser- 

 tion appeared to us more or less extraonlinary; hut 

 we found, by experience, durinij our stay at Bar- 

 bula, thiit the virtues of the pain de vaca had not 

 been exagu^erated. This fine tree rises like the 

 broad-leaved star apple. Its oblonir and pointed 

 leaves, touijh and alternate, are marked by lateral 

 ribs, pronunent at the lower surlace, and parallel. 

 They are some ol" them 10 inches lonir. We did 

 not see the flower: the Ihiit (from the specimen 

 sent to me, about the size and shape of a necta- 

 rine) is somewhat tieshv, and contains one, and 

 sometimes two, nuts. When incisions are made 

 in the trunk of the cow tree, it yields abundance 

 of a glutmous milk, tolerably thick, destitute of all 

 acrimony, and of an agreeable and balmy smell. 

 It was offered to ua in the shell of the tuttono, or 

 calabash tree. We drank considerable quantities 

 of it in the evening before we went to bed, and 

 very early in the morning, without feeling the 

 least injurious effect. The viscosity of this milk 

 alone renders it a little disagreeable. The negroes, 

 and the tree people, who work in the plantations, 

 drink it, dipping into it their bread of maize or cas- 

 sava. The major domo of the farm told us that 

 the negroes grow sensibly fatter during the season 

 when the pa/o de raca furnishes them with most 

 milk. This juice, when exposed to the air, pre- 

 sents at itfa surface, perhaps in consequence of the 

 absorption of atmospheric oxygen, membranes of 

 a strongly animalised substance, yellowish, stringy, 

 and resembling a cheesy substance. These mem- 

 branes, separated from the restof the more aqueous 

 Jiquid, are elastic almost like caoutchouc; but they 

 undergo, in time, the same phenomena of putre- 

 faction as gelatine. The people call the coagu- 

 lum that separates by the contact of the air, cheese. 

 This coagulum grows sour in the space of five or 

 six days, as I observed in the small portions which 

 I carried to Nueva Valencia. The milk, contain- 

 ed in a stopped phial, had deposited a little coagu- 

 lum; and. lar(i"om becomino; lijelid, it exhaled con- 

 stantly a balsamic odor. The fresh juice, mixed 

 with cold water, was scarcely coagulated at all; 

 but, on the contact of nitric arid, the separation of 

 the viscous membranes took place. 



"The extraordmary tree of which we have i">een 

 speaking appears to be peculiar to the Cordillera 

 of the coast, particularly from Barbula to the Lake 

 of Maracaybo. Some stocks of it exist near the 

 village of San Mateo (where the Victoria wheat 

 is cultivated;) and, according to M. Bredemeyer, 

 whose travels have so much enriched the fine hot- 

 houses of Schonbrunn and Vienna, in the valley 

 of Caucagua, three days' journey east of Carac- 

 cas. This naturalist found, like us, that the vege- 

 table milk of the palo lie vaca had an agreeable 

 taste and an aromatic smell. At Caucasua, the 

 natives call the tree that furnishes this nourishing 

 juice, the milk tree ( Arbol de Leche.) They pro- 

 fess to recognise, from the thickness and color of 

 the foliage, the trunks that yield the most juice, as 

 the herdsman distintjuishes, fi-om external signs, a 

 good milch cow. No botanist has hitherto known 

 the existence of this plant, of which it is easy to 

 procure the parts of fructification. It appears, ac- 

 cording to M. Kunth, to belong to the Sapdta fa- 

 mily. Long after my return to Europe, I found, 

 in the description of the West Indies by Laet. a 



Dutchman, a passage ihnit seems to have some 

 relation to the cow tree, "There exist frees," 

 says Laet (Desc. fad. (Jcr., ]\b. 18. c. 4. ed. 1^33, 

 p. 672.,) "in the province of Cutnana, the sap of 

 which resembles curdled milk, and affords a salubri- 

 ous nourishment." 



It is not here the solemn .shades of forests, the 

 majestic course of rivers, tlie mountiiins wrapped 

 in eternal frost, that excite our enjotion. A few 

 drops of vegetable juice recall to our n)inds all ttie 

 power, fulness, ami the fecundity of nature. On 

 the barren flank of a rock <rrows a tree with coria- 

 ceous and dry leaves. Its large woody roots can 

 scarcely penetrate into the stone. For several 

 months of the year not a single shower moistens 

 its foliage. Its branches appear dead and dried; 

 but, when the trunk is pierced, there flows from it 

 a sweet and nourishing milk. It is at the rising of 

 the sun that this vegetable fijuntain is most abun- 

 dant. The blacks and natives are then seen has- 

 tening from all quarters, furnished with large bowls 

 to receive the milk, which grows yellow, and 

 thickens at its surface. Some empty their bowls 

 under the tree itself; others carry the juice home 

 to their children. We seem to see the iamily of a 

 shepherd who distributes the milk of his flock." 



Humboldt speaks of the cow tree as growing 

 on the barren flank of a rock, where it has little 

 soil, and less moisture. Sir Robert, on the con- 

 trary, says that it grows to a vast size in the depths 

 of humid forests, where it enjoys a rich and fertile 

 soil. The nature of the locality will account /or 

 the difference in the statements. In Kunth's des- 

 cription I have introduced those points in which he 

 seems to diflTer fi-om my specimen: the point of at- 

 tachment of the footstalk (which is broken off) is 

 deeply sunk in the body of the first, giving it al- 

 most the appearance of being hearted; the equato- 

 rial diameter (if I may use the expression) ex- 

 ceeds the polar, or that measured in the di- 

 rection of the insertion of the footstalk; the 

 fijrmer measuring 2 inches, the latter 1| inches 

 only: hence its shape is more that of an oblate 

 spheroid, or, rather, approaches to renilbrm. — 

 The form of the specimen sent, on the con- 

 trary, approaches nearer to a sphere, being near- 

 ly I of an inch in its polar, and somewhat less 

 than in its equatorial, diameter; it has, also, a ci- 

 cairix at its base, as though it had been attached to 

 a dissepiment. 



In order to give a connected view of all the in- 

 fiirmation I possess on the subject of this interest- 

 ing tree, I shall now extract the particulars fur- 

 nished to me by Mr. Thomas Hiirson, in a letter, 

 dated Carihagena, May 16, 1824, eleven years 

 ago. 



Mr. Iligson states, that this tree abounds in the 

 deep and humid forests of the provinces of Choco 

 and Popayan, on both sides of the line; but state.'? 

 that he had not been fortunate enough to see the 

 flowers. He then gives some extracts from his 

 Journals of the date of May 7, 1822, from which 

 it appears that, during the intermission of an at- 

 tack of intermittent fever, he accompanied the Al- 

 caide and two other gentlemen from the town of 

 Quibdo, on an excursion about twelve miles up the 

 river, to examine the cow tree, which is there 

 known by the name of Papa; the milky juice of 

 which is procured by the Indians from incisions 

 made in the trunk, and by the jaguars, or wild ti- 

 gers, by lacerating the bark with their claws; and 



