Vegetable Cows. 223 
milk, resembling that of the cow in appearance, but rather sticky 
from the presence of caoutchouc. ‘This milk mixes freely with 
water, is of a pleasant flavour, and the natives employ it as a 
refreshing beverage. 
Two “cow trees” are found in the order Sapotacee, which 
embraces numerous plants valuable for their succulent fruits, such 
as the marmalade, star apple, etc. One of these is the A/imu- 
sops elata, called by the natives massarandaba or aprain, and which 
Professor Orton, in the Andes and the Amazons, describes as one 
of the noblest trees of the forests of Para. It stands from 180 to 
200 feet in height, is 20 feet in circumference, and is crowned 
with a vast dome of foliage. The milk yielded by the bark has 
the consistency of cream, and is used for tea, coffee, and custards. 
It hardens by exposure, so as to resemble gutta percha, which, 
indeed, is the product of a Malaisian tree belonging to the same 
natural order. The other treeis the J/émusops balata, or bully 
tree, of English, French, and Dutch Guiana. The milk of this 
species is sometimes employed with tea or coffee, instead of cows’ 
milk, but has the disadvantage of hardening very rapidly upon 
exposure to the air. 
The natural order Asclepiadacee consists of plants that are 
almost always milky, and the milk is usually acrid and bitter, and 
always to be suspected, yet one of the plants of the family, 
Gymnema lactiferum, the cow plant of Ceylon, called by the 
natives kiriaghuna, yields a milk which the Cingalese make use of 
as food. 
Another example of a “cow tree” belonging to a dangerous 
natural order, the Luphorbiacez, which embraces plants having 
acrid and purgative juices, is the Euphorbia balsamifera, or 
Tabayba dolce, of the Canaries. Notwithstanding the fact that 
the plants of this genus have juices that possess very active 
medicinal qualities, and are in some cases so venomous that they 
are used as arrow poisons, the juice of the species under con- 
sideration is innocuous, and, according to Leopold von Buch, is 
similar to sweet milk, and is eaten as a delicacy after being 
thickened into a jelly. 
Still another “‘ cow tree” is found in the order Clustacee or 
Guttifere, which embraces plants that secrete an acrid, purgative, 
yellow gum resin, such as gamboge. This tree is the C/usia 
galactodendron, a native of Venezuela, where it is known as Palo 
de Vaca. It has a thick bark, covered with rough tubercles, and 
its internal tissue becomes red when exposed to the air. In 
extracting the milk, the inhabitants make incisions through the 
bark till the wood is reached. These cuts are said to be made 
only before full moon, it being imagined that the milk flows more 
freely then than at any other time. One tree will yield a quart in 
