194 ON THE MILK-SAP 



The planter of the Cape strews over pieces of flesh 

 the pounded fruit of a plant that grows there (Hyce- 

 nanche ylobosa, Lam.), and lays them as an infallible 

 poison for the Hyaena. The wild inhabitants of 

 southern Africa, according to Bruce, poison their 

 arrows with a Spurge (Euphorbia caput Medusa). 

 Virey states, that the Ethiopians make a similar ap- 

 plication of others (Euphorbia heptagona, E. virosa 

 W., E. cereiformis), while the savages of the most 

 southern part of America use the sap of a third (E. cotini- 

 folia). Nay, even our seemingly so innocent Box, which 

 also belongs to this family, is so injurious, that in places in 

 Persia, where it much abounds, no camels can be kept, 

 because it is impossible to prevent their feeding on this 

 plant, which is deadly to them. I cannot take leave of 

 this family without mentioning a remarkable phenomenon, 

 reported to us by Martius, in that work so full of infor- 

 mation, his Travels through Brazil. A Spurge grows there 

 (E. phosphor ea, Mart.) the milk of which, when it flows 

 forth from the stem in the dark, hot summer nights, emits 

 a bright phosphoric light. 



While the family just alluded to, the blossoms being 

 generally insignificant, attract the attention of our horti- 

 culturists almost solely through their strange forms, 

 which, in some of them, approach to those of the Cactus 

 plants the family of the Apocynacece is, on the contrary, 

 a rich ornament of our gardens and hot-houses, on account 

 of the wonderful beauty of its blossoms, and is often still 

 more attractive from the remarkable structure of the 

 flowers, and the aberrant, also Cactus-like form of the plant 

 itself. What lover of flowers knows not the splendid 

 blossom of the species of Carissa, Allamanda, Thevetia, 

 Cerbera, Plwnieria, Vinca, Nerium and Gelseminum 



