THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



But what a much more feverish activity must reign in 

 the vital laboratory of those monstrous lycoperdons, nine 

 feet in circumference, of which Bulliard speaks in his 

 History of Fungi! 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE SECRETIONS. 



In every part of the vegetable kingdom the most extra- 

 ordinary contrasts are seen. We find them as well in the 

 details as in the organism viewed as a whole; in the 

 aspect of a plant as in the obscure functions of the cell. 

 The same pores exude at one time a beneficent nourish- 

 ment, at another a treacherous poison; demulcent juices 

 or corrosive liquids. The same fruit, or the same root, 

 nourishes or instantly kills us. 



The tapioca on which the American savage feeds, and 

 which is so often employed at our tables, abounds in the 

 midst of a poison as deadly as the philtres of Locusta. 

 The edible portion is taken out for the pui'poses of com- 

 merce ; but the negroes, when they want to commit 

 suicide, eat the root whole. The efl^ect is almost as rapid 

 as that of prussic acid. ^ 



^ Two products which are extensively used as food for mau, cassava and 

 tapioca, are ehiborated in tlie midst of the most deadly juices. They are both 

 furnished by the root of the Manihot utilissima (the Janipha Manikot), found 

 extensivelj' in Africa and the West Indies. The negroes are well acquainted 

 with the redoubtable energy of this poison ; but as it is very volatile and easily 

 decomposed, being considered analogous to prussic acid, it is easily destroyed and 

 rendered powerless by fermentation, so that the rude tribes of America manage 



