FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES 67 



with slightly milky and quite innocuous juice, had been taken 

 possession of by a horde of ants, and I had to wait until they 

 had stripped it of every leaf before I could pull down my 

 Securidaca, which they had left quite untouched. It was 

 probably preserved by its drastic properties from sharing the 

 fate of the Phyllanthus.] 



" Many odoriferous leaves seem destitute of special oil- 

 glands, and their essential oil probably exists in nearly every 

 cell, along with the chlorophyll as I have found it in several 

 aromatic Hepaticas. Many Laurinese and Burseraceae (Amyri- 

 deae of Lindley) are in this case. The latter are eminently 

 resiniferous, and yield the best native pitch (the brea branca) 

 of the Amazon valley. I have never seen their leaves muti- 

 lated by ants, and I think never by caterpillars. Oil-glands 

 indeed exist in many plants where they are either so deeply 

 imbedded or so minute as only to be detected by close 

 scrutiny. Their presence was denied in the Nutmegs (see 

 Lindley, etc.) 1 until I found them in the American species, 

 and one species has them so conspicuous that I have called 

 it Myristica punctata. 



" In nearly all these plants, however, when the essential 

 oil has been wholly or in part dissipated by drying, the 

 leaf-cutters find the leaves apt material for their purpose — 

 whatever that may be. 2 They once fell on some of my dried 

 specimens, and first cut up a Croton — a genus I had never 

 seen them touch in the living state. It reminded me of our 

 cows in England, which cautiously avoid the fresh foliage of 

 Buttercups, but eat it readily when made into hay. The 

 acrid principle in these and many other plants, odorous and 

 inodorous, is known to be highly volatile. 



" Where aromatic plants most abound is in the dry — often 

 nearly treeless — mountainous parts of southern Europe and 

 Western Asia, especially in the sierras of Spain. When I 



1 In Lindley's "Vegetable Kingdom" (3rd ed.) he gives among the 

 characters of the Order Myristicaceae, " Leaves not dotted." — A. R. W. 



2 The ants store these leaves in extensive underground cavities, 

 where fungi grow on them on which the ants feed (see Bates and 

 Belt).— A. R. W. 



