POISONOUS PROPERTIES OF STRYCHNINE. 417 



the whole country around was desolated by its noxious effluvia. But 

 the fact is, the upas tree is merely a tree with poisonous secretions, 

 and in no way affects the atmosphere of the locality where it lives. 



A not less terrible poison is furnished by the Liana Tieute' (Strych- 

 nos tieut^), a member of the family Loganiacece. It has an exceed- 

 ingly long stem, but does not yield, like the upas, a whitish milky* 

 juice. Its voluminous roots are covered with a thin reddish bark, of 

 a peculiarly bitter taste. By boiling these roots the Javanese obtain 

 the poisonous resin called in Malaysia Upas tieute, and which was at 

 one time supposed to be identical with the essential element intro- 

 duced by the Indians of South America into their famous Ourari or 

 Wourali. Sir Richard Schomburgk, however, has shown that the 

 latter is obtained from the Strychnos toxifera, a native of Guiana. 



There are several other species of Strychnos ; all with flattened, 

 disc-like, and silky seeds, surrounded by pulp. S. nux vomica, a 

 moderate-sized tree, with fruit much like an orange in appearance, 

 furnishes the valuable medicine and fatal poison for it is both 

 called Nux vomica. The seeds have an intensely bitter taste, owing 

 to the presence of two most virulent poisons, Strychnia and Brucia ; 

 but the pulp is innocuous, and greedily devoured by birds. Strychnos 

 Colubrina, a native of Malabar, furnished a variety of Snakewood, 

 which in cases of bites by serpents is esteemed an infallible remedy. 

 8. Pseudo-quina, which flourishes in Brazil, yields a bark scarcely 

 inferior in value as a tonic and a febrifuge to quinine. 



I have spoken of the abundance and variety of the epiphytous 

 plants which grow profusely in the islands of the Indian Ocean. In 

 Sumatra and in Borneo, the more venerable trees are clothed in a 

 rich garment of lycopodiums and ferns, and these often glow with 

 dazzling orchidaceous flowers, while by their side flourish strange 

 aroidacese, with clinYbing crawling stems, and aerial suckers. But of 

 all these brilliant parasites, the most extraordinary, without doubt, is 

 the Rafflesia Arnoldi a plant without any stem, which grows along 

 the surface of the ground upon the roots of the lianas, and princi- 



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