Domestic Notices : — England. 101 



" I will not forget you on the subject of the Lirio hermoso (/*ancratium 

 undulatum Humb.), and will write to a friend in the Tay to get some Lirio 

 bulbs. I send you, with this, three seeds, or fruit, of the Palo de Vaca, or 

 milk tree ; one of them is in its husk, and the others are without it. I hope 

 they will vegetate with you. The average temperature where these splendid, 

 lofty, and umbrageous trees grow, is from 70° to 76° of Fahrenheit, amidst a 

 thick forest of other large trees, at an elevation of 3000 ft. above the level of 

 the sea, in a soil black and rich, and containing a great degree of moisture the 

 whole year through." 



As the work in which Humboldt speaks of this remarkable production of 

 a bounteous Providence may not be accessible to all your numerous readers, 

 I shall, for their information, extract from the fourth volume of the English 

 translation of his Personal Narrative, p. 212, 213, &c.,the observations of this 

 distinguished traveller, which differ in some slight degree from Sir Robert's 

 account, and, at the same time, furnish particulars which he did not feel it ne- 

 cessary to introduce : — 



" We returned from Puerto Cabello to the valleys of Aragua, and again 

 stopped at the plantation of Barbula, by which the new road to Valencia is 

 traced. We had heard, several weeks before, of a tree, the juice of which is 

 a nourishing milk. It is called the cow tree ; and we were assured that the 

 negroes of the farm, who drink plentifully of this vegetable milk, consider it as 

 a wholesome aliment. All the milky juices of plants being acrid, bitter, and 

 more or less poisonous, this assertion appeared to us more or less extraor- 

 dinary ; but we found, by experience, during our stay at Barbula, that the 

 virtues of the Palo de Vaca had not been exaggerated. This fine tree rises 

 like the broad-leaved star apple. Its oblong and pointed leaves, tough and 

 alternate, are marked by lateral ribs,-prominent at the lower surface, and pa- 

 rallel. They are some of them 10 in. long. We did not see the flower : the 

 fruit (from the specimen sent to me, about the size and shape of a nectarine) 

 is somewhat flesh}', and contains one, and sometimes two, nuts. When inci- 

 sions are made in the trunk of the cow tree, it yields abundance of a glutinous 

 milk, tolerably thick, destitute of all acrimony, and of an agreeable and balmy 

 smell. It was offered to us in the shell of the tuttono, or calabash tree. We 

 drank considerable quantities of it in the evening before we went to bed, and 

 very early in the morning, without feeling the least injurious effect. The vis- 

 cosity of this milk alone renders it a little disagreeable. The negroes, and the 

 free people, who work in the plantations, drink it, dipping into it their bread 

 of maize or cassava. The major domo of the farm told us that the negroes 

 grow sensibl}' fatter during the season when the Palo de Vaca furnishes them 

 with most milk. This juice, when exposed to the air, presents at its surface, 

 perhaps in consequence of the absorption of atmospheric oxygen, membranes 

 of a strongly animalised substance, yellowish, stringy, and resembling a cheesy 

 substance. These membranes, separated from the rest of the more aqueous 

 liquid, are elastic almost like caoutchouc ; but they undergo, in time, the same 

 phenomena of putrefaction as gelatine. The people call the coagulum that 

 separates by the contact of the air, cheese. This coagulum grows sour in the 

 space of five or six days, as I observed in the small portions which I 

 carried to Nueva Valencia. The milk, contained in a stopped phial, had 

 deposited a little coagulum'; and, far from becoming fetid, it exhaled constantly 

 a balsamic odour. The fresh juice, mixed with cold water, was scarcely coagu- 

 lated at all ; but, on the contact of nitric acid, the separation of the viscous 

 membranes took place. 



" The extraordinary tree of which we have been speaking appears to be 

 peculiar to the Cordillera of the coast, particularly from Barbula to the Lake 

 of Maracaybo. .Some stocks of it exist near the village of San Mateo (where 

 the Victoria wheat is cultivated) ; and, according to M. Bredemeyer, whose 

 travels have so much enriched the fine hot-houses of Schonbrunn and Vienna, 

 in the valley of Caiicagua, three days' journey east of Caraccas. This natu- 



VoL. All. — No. 71. ' I 



