Marvel-loving writers formerly asserted that this deadly poison was employed in the execution of criminals, who, however, received a pardon if they contrived to reach a tree, and bring back a supply of its venom. Birds, it was said, dropped dead while flying over it—as was formerly told of the pestilential waters of the Dead Sea—and the whole country around was desolated by its noxious effluvia. But the fact is, the upas tree is merely a tree with poisonous secretions, and in no way affects the atmosphere of the locality where it lives.
A not less terrible poison is furnished by the Liana Tieuté (Strychnos tieuté), a member of the family Loganiaceæ. It has an exceedingly long stem, but does not yield, like the upas, a whitish milky juice. Its voluminous roots are covered with a thin reddish bark, of a peculiarly bitter taste. By boiling these roots the Javanese obtain the poisonous resin called in Malaysia Upas tieuté, and which was at one time supposed to be identical with the essential element introduced by the Indians of South America into their famous Ourari or Wourali. Sir Richard Schomburgk, however, has shown that the latter is obtained from the Strychnos toxifera, a native of Guiana.
There are several other species of Strychnos; all with flattened, disc-like, and silky seeds, surrounded by pulp. S. nux vomica, a moderate-sized tree, with fruit much like an orange in appearance, furnishes the valuable medicine and fatal poison—for it is both—called Nux vomica. The seeds have an intensely bitter taste, owing to the presence of two most virulent poisons, Strychnia and Brucia; but the pulp is innocuous, and greedily devoured by birds. Strychnos Colubrina, a native of Malabar, furnished a variety of Snakewood, which in cases of bites by serpents is esteemed an infallible remedy. S. Pseudo-quina, which flourishes in Brazil, yields a bark scarcely inferior in value as a tonic and a febrifuge to quinine.
I have spoken of the abundance and variety of the epiphytous plants which grow profusely in the islands of the Indian Ocean. In Sumatra and in Borneo, the more venerable trees are clothed in a rich garment of lycopodiums and ferns, and these often glow with dazzling orchidaceous flowers, while by their side flourish strange aroidaceæ, with climbing crawling stems, and aërial suckers. But of all these brilliant parasites, the most extraordinary, without doubt, is the Rafflesia Arnoldi—a plant without any stem, which grows along the surface of the ground upon the roots of the lianas, and principally of the lissus, a species of vine peculiar to tropical countries. It was discovered by Dr. Arnold, while in attendance upon Sir Stamford Raffles, Governor of Java. It produces only a fleshy flower, of a wine-like colour, with an intolerably disgusting odour; but it acquires extraordinary, and one might say monstrous dimensions, for it seldom measures less than a yard in diameter, and its weight frequently exceeds four pounds.
Upon the humid coasts of Borneo and Sumatra, the Casuarinas mingle their weeping branches with those of the mangroves and fig-trees. Palms are common in these two great islands, as well as at Ceylon and at Java. I may mention among the most useful the Nipa fruticans and the Sugar Palm (Areca saccharifera). The transformed leaves which accompany the inflorescence of the Nipa are brimful of a sugared and effervescent liquid, which is extracted by pressure, and converted into a palm wine of indifferent quality, consumed in great quantities in the Sunda Archipelago. A very sweet liquid, a species of syrup fit for the confection of dainty sweetmeats, escapes from incisions made into the floral envelopes of the Areca saccharifera. A tree-wax, analogous to that of the Croton sebiferum, is furnished by the tree which the natives of Borneo designate Pallagrar-Minjok (Dipterocarpus trinervis). And, finally, it is at Borneo and at Sumatra we meet with the Dryobabanops camphora, whence is procured a species of camphor preferred by the Chinese to that of the Laurus camphora; the Urceola elastica, whose milky sap indurates into a kind of caoutchouc, called Suitawan; and the Isonandra-Percha (genus Bassia butyracea, family of the Sapotaceæ), which of recent years has become the staple of an extensive commerce. It is from this tree we obtain the valuable product of gutta-percha, which has received such various and ingenious applications, and is scarcely less useful in the arts than in the sciences.
| 1. Rafflesia Arnoldia. 2. Niphobolus pubescens. | 3. Phalænopsis amabilis. 4. Ærides suaveolens. 5. Cycas circinnalis. | 6. Nepenthes distillatoria. 7. Scindapsus pertusus. |
Java is perhaps the most fertile of the Sunda Islands. Immense forests extend over its plains, and climb up its mountain-slopes to an elevation of upwards of 6500 feet. The damp localities are peopled with Clusiaceæ, and with other trees of thick soft trunks and branches. Mangroves and Avicennias thrive upon the littoral. The latter are specially noticeable on account of their roots, which climb to a great distance above the muddy soil, and throw off a number of suckers, not unlike gigantic water-pipes (asperges). Among the palms most abundant at Java, I confine myself to naming the Borrassus, the Corypha, and the Areca. The Vaquois (a species of Pandanus), which in stature and appearance resemble the palms, are also widely diffused in that rich and fertile island. In the forests of its interior swarm such splendid Ferns as the Niphobolus pubescens, and such graceful Archids as the Aerides suaveolens, with its far-shooting fronds and flowers, and the Phalænopsis amabilis. There, too, the traveller pauses before the Cycas circinnalis, whose trunk, upright and cylindrical as a Grecian column, is surmounted by a crest of feathery leaves, each six to seven feet in length, stiff, and cut into numerous strips, somewhat like our native bracken; or he refreshes himself with the pure liquid which the winding Nepenthes distillatoria, or Pitcher plant, collects in its horn-shaped leaves, as a constant source of nutriment for its active life; or, finally, he gazes wonderingly at the Scindapsus pertusus, an epiphytous plant, whose cartilaginous leaves are perforated with an infinity of small circular holes, and which twines itself round the tallest forest-trees in an embrace as close as love’s!
The forest-flora of the Moluccas differs but little from that of the Sunda Islands. It presents, however, a few plants particularly calculated to excite our interest. Thus, at Amboyna, the Sago-Palms, with other trees of the same family, accumulate in immense woods, spreading over hundreds of acres. Everybody knows that the pith of this palm is a white farinaceous substance, called sago, which not only enters largely into the daily food of the natives, but forms an important item in the European bill of fare, at least for children and invalids. Amboyna, moreover, is the classic land of spices. The air is thick with “Sabæan odours.” Every breeze comes laden with perfumes. The Nutmeg (Myristica aromatica), the Clove (Caryophyllus aromaticus), and the Pepper-plants grow there in a wild state.