CHAP. III.] THE GODA-KADURU. EUPHORBIA. 101 



coast, and several noble specimens of it are found near the 

 fort of Colombo. 



The Goda-kaduru, or Strychnos nux-vomica, is abun- 

 dant in these prodigious forests, and has obtained an 

 European celebrity from the fact of its producing the 

 poisonous seeds from which strychnine is extracted. Its 

 fruit, which it exhibits in great profusion, is of the size and 

 colour of a small orange, within which a pulpy sub- 

 stance envelopes the seeds that form the " nux-vomica " 

 of commerce. It grows in great luxuriance in the 

 vicinity of the ruined tanks throughout the Wanny, and 

 on the west coast as far south as Negombo. It is 

 singular that in this genus there should be found two 

 plants, the seeds of one being not only harmless but 

 wholesome, and that of the other the most formidable 

 of known poisons. 1 Amongst the Malabar immigrants 

 there is a belief that the seeds of the goda-kaduru, if 

 habitually taken, will act as a prophylactic against the 

 venom of the cobra de capello ; and I have been assured 

 that the coolies coming from the coast of India accus- 

 tom themselves to eat a single seed per day in order to 

 acquire the desired protection from the effects of this 

 serpent's bite. 2 



In these forests the Euphorbia 3 , which we are accus- 

 tomed to see only as a cactus-like green-house plant, attains 

 the size and strength of a small timber-tree ; its quadran- 

 gular stem becomes circular and woody, and its square 

 fleshy shoots take the form of branches, or rise with a 

 rounded top to the height of thirty feet. 4 



1 The tettan-cotta, the use of which I to increase the intoxicating power of 

 is described in Vol. II. Pt. ix. ch. i. j the spirit, 

 p. 411, when applied by the natives | 3 E. Antiquorun. 

 to clarify muddy water, is the seed of 4 Amongst the remarkable plants 

 another "species of strychnos, S. pota- of Ceylon, there is one concerning 

 torum. The Singhalese name is ingini which a singular error has been per- 

 (tettan-cotta is Tamil). I petuated in botanical works from the 



3 In India, the distillers of arrack | time of Paul Hermann, who first 

 from the juice of the coco-nut palm > described it in 1687, to the present, 

 are said, by Roxburgh, to introduce | I mean the kiri-anguna (Gymnema 

 the seeds of the strychnus, in order j lactiferum), evidently a form of the 



