POISON TREE. 
It has been long known that particular trees are 
of a poisonous quality, and occasion the death of 
such animals as incautiously feed upon them ; but 
the subject of our present consideration greatly ex- 
ceeds every other plant in its deleterious effects, 
and is said even to occasion a barrenness in the 
ground for a considerable distance round the spot 
where it grows. We are at a loss to assign its pro- 
per place in the vegetable system, as neither its 
class nor order is known : indeed the many appa- 
rently exaggerated accounts of its wonderful pro- 
perties, would have made us reject it entirely, had 
it not been for the authority of M. Foersch, a Dutch 
naturalist, who has given a very circumstantial ac- 
count of this singular tree. What this gentleman 
has said upon the subject has been translated from 
the original Dutch, and in that state we shall insert 
it ; leaving the reader to make his own comments 
on the wonderful effects of the plant. 
M. Foersch tells us that this destructive tree is 
called in the Malayan language Bohun-Upas, and 
has been described by naturalists ; but their ac- 
counts have been so tinctured with the marvellous, 
that the whole narration has been supposed to be an 
ingenious fiction by the generality of readers. Nor 
