762 
EXTRACTS.—NATURAL HISTORY. 
The Divi Ladner is the Tabernaemontana alternifblia of botanists,and Eve’s 
apple of the descendants of the Portuguese in Ceylon. (Fig. 125.) The name 
applied to this tree by the latter people originates in the tradition which pre¬ 
vailed in former days, among the Mahometans and the Portuguese, that Ceylon 
was the paradise described in the scriptures, that the garden of Eden was situated 
in it; and that the fruit of this tree was the forbidden fruit of which Eve eat. 
In confirmation of this tradition, they referred to the beauty of the fruit, and the 
fine scent of its flowers, which are most tempting: and to the circumstance of 
the fruit having been excellent before Eve tasted it. The shape gives it the ap- 
pearanee of a fruit, a piece of which had been bitten off; and its effects are so 
poisonous at present, that two European soldiers, shortly after the capture of 
Colombo in 1795, being unaware of the nature of the fruit, were tempted by its 
appearance to taste it, and very soon after sickened and died.— Mtuj. Nat. Hist. 
125 
