276 POPULAR GEOGRAPHY OP PLANTS. 



brought down the branches was in no way incommoded. 

 The inner bark also of the young trees, which is employed 

 by the poorer class of people in making a coarse stuff, which 

 they wear when working in the fields, developes properties 

 of a very irritating nature when exposed to the rain; so 

 that persons clad in this dress find their flimsy covering 

 almost insupportable under these circumstances. 



It is the milky juice which exudes from the bark when 

 wounded which is used by the natives as an ingredient in 

 the deadly poison in which they steep their arrows; the 

 preparation of it is an art belonging exclusively to the in- 

 habitants at the eastern extremity of the island ; it appears 

 to be one of the most virulent of all poisons ; animals on 

 which its strength has been tested having died in the most 

 dreadful convulsions. The Upas is one of the largest trees 

 in the forests of Java, with a cylindrical, perpendicular stem, 

 rising completely bare of branches to the height of sixty, 

 seventy, and even a hundred feet. It has large, deciduous 

 leaves, oblong-oval, sometimes approaching to ovate; the 

 fruit is a purple, velvety, oval drupe.* 



* The Teak-tree is also a native of Java ; and it is a most noticeable 

 phenomenon in its geographical distribution, that though it inhabits Java 

 and the neighbouring isles, it has never been found in Malacca. 



