THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
25 
and widely accepted anecdote. One plant, then, may be, like 
upas, extremely poisonous ; another, like Drosera, small, but 
an expert fly-trap. All that is necessary to create a legend 
is to intensify the poison in the one case and magnify the 
plant and its prey in the other. 
The entrancing and misleading tales of upas, it seems, 
were first circulated by a Dutch surgeon, about the close of 
the last century. This account, which has been constantly re- 
peated and embellished during all these years, represents the 
tree as growing in a desert region a long distance removed 
from any other plant. Condemned criminals and political of- 
fenders were offered a chance for life if they would venture 
to visit the tree and collect some of its poison. In the case 
of a ward boss or county politician this might appear to be a 
case of Newcastle seeking coals — or Rhode Island, clams! 
Be that as it may, the victim was safe-guarded as far as pos- 
sible by reputed antidotes and nostrums, charms, and talis- 
mans, but it is said that only two out of every twenty re- 
turned alive! 
A graphic account was always added to the picture of 
the ground about the tree st^e^^'n with the bleaching bones of 
the unfortunate victims — 
"The bodies and the bones of those 
That strove in other days to pass 
Are withered in the thorny close, 
Or scattered bleaching on the grass." 
The aforesaid Dutch surgeon, whose name was Foresch, 
states that ''there are no fish in the neighboring waters, nor 
has any rat, mouse, or any other vermin been seen there; 
and when any birds fly so near this tree that the effluvia 
reaches them, they fall, a sacrifice to the effects of the poi- 
son." He proceeds e\'en to draw a longer bow by asserting 
that "out of a population of 1,600 persons who were com- 
pelled, on account of civil dissensions, to reside within 
