168 MALAY POISONS AND CHAEM CUBES 



described by Kirtikar and Basu ; the bark and leaves 

 are said to possess tonic principles. It is a small, 

 somewhat shrubby jungle tree, but may attain a large 

 size when cultivated, with small whitish flowers : calyx 

 campanulate, 3 to 5 cleft ; petals valved in bud ; fruit 

 small, about J to | inch in diameter, red. Kelantan 

 Malays say that the very pretty red fruit is a fatal 

 poison to birds, hence the name tangis (" weeping '*) 

 and sarang burong a bird's nest ") ; but this is denied 

 in Pahang, where the derivation of the word is taken as 

 being due to the fruit, which, though so attractive to 

 appearance, is useless as food, A dozen half-ripe fruit 

 freshly gathered early in September from a tangis sarang 

 burong tree growing in Kota Bharu, Kelantan, had 

 no effect on a lesser adjutant bird which swallowed 

 them. 



A bitter stuff has been obtained from Heynia trijuga, 

 but it is not a glucoside, Greshoff says that the bitter 

 extract taken from the seeds of the allied H. sumatrana, 

 Miq., was apparently not poisonous (Eef. 11, Vol. 

 XXV., p. 40). Borsma, however, says that with 

 50 mg. of an extract obtained from the bark and 

 branches he caused a marked intoxication with fatal 

 effect in frogs. 



THE UPAS CLIMBER 



Strychnos tieute, BL— Loganacefle, is akar ipohj a 

 jungle climbing plant, the ckettik and upas tieute of 

 Java, the ipoh gunong of the Kedah' .Negritos and the 

 hlay hitam of Vaughan Stevens, one of the poisonous 

 plants used in making arrow and dart poisons by the 

 jungle tribes of the Malay Peninsula. It has been 

 botanically described by Ridley as follows : *' A strong 

 woody creeper attaining the length of a hundred feet 

 or less, and a diameter of three inches. The bark is 



