POISONS FROM JUNGLE PLANTS 160 



smooth and black. The branches usually fairly stout, 

 climbing by means of rather large woody hooks. 

 Leaves, polished dark green, oblong acuminate, with 

 the characteristic three parallel nerves as in other 

 species, three inches long and about one and a half wide. 

 The flowers are small and tubular, \Aith four lobes to the 

 corolla, greenish white ; they are arranged in short 

 axillary panicles about an inch long, in pairs. The 

 fruit is a globular berry about two inches through, of a 

 greenish gray colour. The rind, about J inch thick, is 

 woody but brittle, and encloses a soft whitish pulp, in 

 which are embedded numerous oblong flattened seeds 

 about half to one inch long, and half or more wide, 

 brown with silky coat. Every portion of the plant 

 has an intensely bitter taste, especially the fruit and the 

 pulp enclosing the seeds " (Ref. 18). 



Mr. liidley goes on to say that the Malayan species 

 of Strychnos are often troublesome to identify, as they 

 flower as a rule very irregularly, and, o^4ng to the height 

 to which most species climb before flowering, the flowei's 

 are very difficult to collect. The fohage, too, is often 

 very variable, according to the part of the tree from 

 which it is obtained. The variety Btryclmos Wallichiana, 

 Benth., is the i-poh akar of Borneo ; S. Maingayi, Clarke, 

 is the akar lampong of Malacca ; and perhaps S, 

 pubescens, Clarke, is the blay hiiam described by 

 Vaughan Stevens in 1894. This poisonous jungle plant 

 is abundant over the greater part of the Malay Penin- 

 sula. Blume describes and figures the fruit as red when 

 ripe. 



The botany of akar ipoh is given at lengt.h because it 

 is important to distinguish it from pokok ipoh, the well- 

 known upas tree of Java. The Javanese word upas 

 means blood poison (especially the vegetable poison 

 used for darts), and confusion occurred when S. tieute 



