234 
THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
grow on the top. It emits a peculiar, disagreeable 
smell, but it is best known by its leaf, which is nearly 
round, having a point on the top, and is jagged all round 
the edge like the Nettle. All the leaves are large; 
some as large as a saucer. Sometimes, while shooting 
turkeys in the scrubs, I have entirely forgotten the Sting¬ 
ing-tree till warned of its close proximity by its smell, 
and I have then found myself in a little forest of them. 
I was only once stung, and that was very lightly. Its 
effects are curious. It leaves no mark, but the pain is 
maddening, and for months afterwards the part, when 
touched, is tender in rainy weather, or when it gets wet 
in washing. I have seen a man who treats ordinary 
pain lightly, roll on the ground in agony after being 
stung; and I have known a horse so completely mad 
after getting into a grove of the trees, that he rushed 
open-mouthed at every one who approached him, and 
had to be shot in the scrub. Dogs, when stung, will 
rush about whining most piteously, biting pieces from 
the affected part. The small Stinging-trees are as 
dangerous as any, being so hard to see, and seriously 
imperiling one’s ankles.” , 
We fail to see any good or economic use to be made 
of this tree. Undoubtedly it performs as important a 
mission as that of any other plant, none the less be¬ 
cause we fail to see or appreciate it: hidden influences 
are the most powerful. 
Nature, in providing for the wants of man, has not 
been unmindful of any locality or of its necessities. 
Every locality has its special needs, and its vegetation 
is fitted for it. Plants have a far more important work 
than the production of fruits and flowers ; the conver¬ 
sion of impure into pure gases, in order that animals 
can live, is the work of the plant, and no two does the 
same, each has a specific work that it does wisely and 
well. The atmosphere is charged with as many different 
elements as there are different plants, each plant does 
the work assigned it, and man reaps the result of its 
labors. Plants luxuriate in their native home, yielding 
their rich fruits in the greatest abundance, while they 
barely live in an artificial soil and temperature. Why? 
simply because there are not, in their artificial homes, 
the elements that sustain and fit them to accomplish the 
work they were created to do. The oak has its work to 
perform, so has the orange, yet neither can do the work 
of the 'other, nor will either thrive if in the other’s 
place. 
In Turkey the common Poppy, Papaver somniferum, 
yields a large amount of opium, in some other countries 
a much smaller yield, and in others very little, or none. 
The reason for this is very simple : in its adopted home 
there are not the elements in the atmosphere that this 
plant requires for its work. 
In the tropical valleys of the Andes are immense 
groves of the Cinchona, a beautiful evergreen shrub or 
low-growing tree, the bark of which is known in com¬ 
merce as Peruvian bark, which yields the valuable tonic 
called quinine. This tree is only found in those malarial 
districts, nor will it yield, in any other, a bark contain¬ 
ing the same active principle to any extent. Experi¬ 
ments have been made in its cultivation in other coun¬ 
tries, where soil and temperature are favorable to its 
development. The tree grew luxuriantly, but its bark 
was valueless, excepting for the purposes of adultera¬ 
tion. This shows plainly the wisdom displayed in the 
distribution of plants, and their adaptation to the neces¬ 
sities of the localities in which they are placed. A more 
remarkable instance of this may be noticed in the crea¬ 
tion of the 
COW-TREE OF SOOTH AMERICA, 
Brosimum gaJactodendron. This tree forms large forests 
on the arid, rocky plains of South America, being the 
most abundant near the town of Cariaco, and along the 
sea-coast of Venezuela, growing more than 100 feet 
high, with a trunk six or eight feet in diameter, and 
without branches for the first sixty or seventy feet of its 
height. The leaves aro of a leathery texture, strongly 
veined, and of a deep-sliiuiug green color, about a foot 
long and three or four inches broad. This tree yields a 
copious supply of a rich and wholesome milk, which is 
said to be as nutritious as that of the cow. Strange as 
it may appear, the cow-tree belongs to the same natural 
order which embraces the Upas and the Bread-fruit tree ; 
it is but slightly removed from the order which includes 
the Fig and the Mulberry; the milky fluid of some of the 
ficus tribe of this genus is the source of our caoutchouc 
or india-rubber. The bland and nutritious juice yielded 
by the cow-tree has been found, on analysis, to contain 
thirty per cent, of galactine, the analogous principle to 
lactine, or the sugar of animal milk. The juice is ob¬ 
tained from the stem of the tree by making incisions, 
and is collected by the natives in gourds. We are in¬ 
debted for the first accurate account of the tree which 
thus curiously, combines the functions of animal and 
vegetable life, to Baron Humboldt. He drank of the 
milk at Porto Cabello, and describes it as thick, gelat¬ 
inous, bland, and without acrimony, and possessing a 
balmy and agreeable odor. It is used along with cassova 
and Indian corn bread, and the natives grow sensibly 
fatter during the season when the milk is yielded most 
copiously. When exposed to the air a curdy matter 
separates from the fluid, which resembles cheese, and is 
named accordingly by the natives. The natives pro¬ 
fess to be able to recognize in the color and thickness of 
the foliage the trunks that yield the most juice, as the 
herdsman distinguishes by external signs the milch cow. 
“ It is not here,” says Humboldt, “ in the solemn shades 
of forests, the majestic course of, rivers, the mountains 
wrapped in eternal frost, that excite our commotion. A 
few drops of vegetable juice recall to our minds all of 
the powerfulness and fecundity of nature. On the bar¬ 
ren flank of a rock grows a tree with coriaceous and 
dry leaves. Its large woody roots can scarcely penetrate J 
into the stony earth. For several months of the year 
not a single shower moistens its foliage, Its branches 
appear dead and dried ; but when the trunk is pierced, 
there flows from it a sweet and nourishing milk. It is 
at the rising of the sun that this vegetable fountain is 
most abundant.” 
One of the hardest woods in existence is that of the 
desert ironwood-tree, which grows in the dry wastes 
along the line of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Its 
specific gravity is nearly the same as that of lignum- 
vitae, and it has a black heart so hard, when well season¬ 
ed, that it will turn the edge of an axe, and can scarcely 
be cut by a well-tempered saw. In burning it gives out 
an intense heat. 
