bites it, so as to prevent his speaking. An accident which happened 
to one of the men employed at Kew, who chanced to bite one of 
these plants, is recorded by Sir W. J. Hooker, where “the tongue 
swelled to such a degree that he could not move it; he became 
utterly incapable of speaking, and was confined to the house for some 
days in the most excruciating torments.” In those regions of the 
West where a barbarous tyranny, supported by unjust, and unchristian 
laws, ministers to the selfishness of man, by maintaining one unhappy 
race of our fellow creatures under the curse of a hopeless and de- 
grading bondage, a cruel master will sometimes punish his slave by 
rubbing the juice of the dumb cane over his mouth; thus inflicting on 
him a torment which probably could only be exceeded in violence, 
by flogging him with one of those dreadful species of nettle found 
in the East Indies, the effects of whose stinging is felt for months, 
and in some cases is said to produce death. An important use is, 
however, made of the juice of the Dumb Cane, it being extensively 
used in the process of refining sugar. 
InTropucTion; WHERE GRowN; CuLTuRE. This plant has been 
long in the country, having been cultivated in 1759, by Miller. The 
present specimen flowered in the stove of the Botanic Garden, at 
Cambridge, in January and February of the present year, 1839. It 
requires no particular treatment. 
DeErivaTION oF THE NaMEs. 
DIEFFENBACHIA, apparen tly in honour of Dieffenbach; but not having the 
Jacquin informs us this plant is known to the French in the West Indies. 
Syn S. 
Carapium Sxecuinum. Hooker's Exotic “Flora, Vol. 1, Pl. 1. Bot. Mag. Vol, 
52, Pl. 2606. 
