DICOTYLEDONES. 



203 



orange-like fruit, coBtaining large flattish seeds, the latter 

 being the poisonous drug Nux-vomica. From these two 

 alkaloids. Strychnia and Brucia are obtained, the sul- 

 phate of the former being kept in the shops. The poison 

 variously known as Curare, Ourari, or Woorara, is obtained 

 from 8. toxifera of South America. A Japanese Climber 

 (S. Tieute) furnishes Upas Tieut^, or Tjettek, which the 

 natives use to poison their arrows. 



10. Asclepiadaceae. The Milkweed family com- 

 prises woody or herbaceous plants, with a milky juice, 

 which is generally acrid 

 and poisonous ; ovaries two, 

 but with a single common 

 stigma ; peculiar flowers 

 and pollinia, adapted for 

 pollination by insects. 

 This large family (about 

 thirteen hundred species) 

 is mostly tropical, but of 

 slight economic import- sis 

 ance. Of the ornamental plants, tlie Wax-plant of India 

 {Hoya earnosa, Fig. 318) is the most common. Our 

 common Milkweeds (Asclepias) belong to this family. 



11. Apocynaceae. The Dogbane family is much 

 like the preceding, but the pollen is granular and the 

 corolla convolute. There are about nine hundred, mostly 

 tropical, species. The tough fibrous bark of our native 

 species of Apocynum was used by the Indians for making 

 cordage, nets, etc. Caoutchouc is obtained from species 

 of Siphonia of South America, of Vahea and XJrceola, 

 natives of Madagascar, Borneo, etc. The Ordeal-tree of 



Fig. 318. Wax-plant {Hoya earnosa). 



