CANNABINACEZ. 345 
becomes wholesome and delicious. The same is probably the case 
with all the Bread-fruits. 
The Bread-fruit would seem to be an inverted Fig. The trees 
have “stems of considerable size, large rough leaves, stipules like 
the fig, monecious flowers, the stamen-bearing ones disposed in 
long club-shaped spikes, the pistil-bearing ones in round heads, 
which afterwards become the solid receptacle round which the fruit 
ripens, in contradistinction to the Fig, in which the receptacle is 
internal and fleshy. -Artocarpus incisa, the Bread of the South- 
Sea Islands, is green, and equal in size to the larger melons. One 
variety produces the fruit free from spines on the surface or seeds 
internally ; others split into deep lobes, or are covered all over 
with the sharp-pointed fleshy tops of the calyx. The nuts when 
roasted are said to taste like chestnuts; but it is principally for 
the fleshy receptacle that it is valued, and this when roasted 
becomes soft, tender, and white, and not unlike the crumb of bread 
when eaten new. 
The Uvas-rrex (Antiaris toxicaria), the half-fabulous poison 
tree of Java, was said to be a large tree growing in the midst of a 
desert produced by its own pestiferous qualities, and causing 
death to every other plant and animal which came under its 
influence. To approach the tree for the purpose of wounding its 
stem and carrying off its juice, was said to be the task of criminals 
condemned to death. There is a measure of truth in the fable. 
There is the Upas-tree in Java, and its juice, taken internally, is 
Speedy death to any animal; and there is a tract of land where 
_ neither plant nor animal can exist; but the two circumstances 
have no connection. The poisoned tract is the crater of a volcano, 
Which emits carbonic acid gas continually—a spot where not even 
the Upas-tree can grow. The Upas-tree is one of the Artocar- 
pacee, which abounds in milky juice, and this juice, as we have 
said, is like many of its congeners, a deadly poison when mingled 
With the blood. 
The Prangs (Platanus) are exogenous trees, or shrubs, with 
palmate deciduous leaves, toothed and stipulate, unisexual naked 
flowers, in globose catkins, the barren flowers with single stamens 
mixed with scales. The fertile flowers with one-celled ovary, 
thick and awl-shaped style. The Oriental Plane (P. orientalis) 
