138 THE WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 



TREACHEROUS PLANTS. 



The remarkable quality which we have mentioned 

 in speaking of the " Treacherous Plants," producing 

 at one and the same time wholesome food and a ter- 

 rible poison, is even more characteristic in a more 

 striking degree of another class of plants. The 

 milky juice of some of these is rich in caoutchouc ; in 

 others it appears in the form of sweet milk, whole- 

 some and palatable, and in a third variety it assumes 

 the form of a deadly poison. We have spoken al- 

 ready of milk-trees proper, of trees producing caout- 

 chouc, and of arborescent euphorbias, but many of 

 these plants are more deadly than any we have yet men- 

 tioned. The savages of South America poison their 

 arrows with euphorbia-milk, and the natives of Ethi- 

 opia do the same at the Cape ; they employ pieces 

 of meat powdered with the pollen of Hyananche 

 globosa, as an infallible means of killing hyenas. 



One species of euphorbia described by Martins 

 presents this remarkable peculiarity, that its milk, 

 when it is drawn from the tree in dark warm summer 

 nights, gives out a phosphorescent light. 



The woorare, ourari, urali, etc., are nothing else 

 than the car are. In past times this substance 

 was believed to consist of a vegetable juice mixed 

 with the blood of the viper, the poison of the rattle- 

 snake, the saliva of serpents and other poisonous 

 substances. These statements were shown to be 

 false by Humboldt, Boussingault and other travel- 

 lers, who have had an opportunity of studying the 



