THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



131 



The fig or breadfruit family ( Artocarpaceae) which is 

 widely distributed in the tropics and is represented with us by 

 the mulberry, and osage orange, is one of the most interesting 

 of the laticiferous plant families. The bread fruit tree gives 

 hoth bread and milk though the bread, while edible, is scarcely 

 bread in our sense of the word and the milk is unfit for use. 

 With so many species of latex-bearing trees, it would be sur- 

 prising if none were found to yield a fluid fit to drink. As a 

 matter of fact the south American cow tree {Galactodendron 

 utile) when tapped yields large quantities of milk that is said 

 to be sweet and delicious. Not all members of the fig family 

 are equally harmless, however. One of the deadliest poisons 

 known is derived from the latex of a species known as Antiaria 

 toxicaria from the East Indies. This is the so-called ''deadly 

 upas tree." It was once regarded as so poisonous that people 

 who sat in its shade or the birds which perched in its branches 

 speedily fell dead, but this tale is now known to be a work of 

 the imagination. The writer has spent hours in the shade of 

 the largest upas tree in the western world without any ill 

 efTects whatever. 



