Tales out of school

by Frank R. Stockton

RAFFLESIA ARNOLDI.

It grows in the islands of Java and Sumatra, and the buds and blossoms seem to be pretty much all there is of the plant. And quite enough too. The full blown flower is a yard wide. Each of its five petals is a foot long, and they stand at about the distance of a foot from each other. In the centre there is a deep honey-cup, which is capable of holding a dozen pints of fluid. The whole weighs fifteen pounds. The central cup is violet and red, and the petals are of a brilliant orange color, so that it makes a gorgeous display indeed.

But this flower, so magnificent in size and color, has such a disagreeable smell, that after having satisfied your curiosity by looking at its gigantic blossom, you will be glad to get away from its neighborhood.

From the bark of a tree, the Cinchona, we get one of our most useful and powerful medicines. The bark is known under the name of Peruvian bark, and there are several preparations from it—quinine being the one most generally used. It is a valuable medicine everywhere, but is especially so in the hot countries where it grows, for very malignant fevers prevail in those localities. It got its name, Cinchona, from the first European who used it. The Countess Chinchon of Spain, while living in Peru was attacked by one of the terrible fevers of the country, and was near dying, when she heard that in such fevers the natives cured themselves with the bark of a tree. She tried it, and recovered; and, after she got well, she took pains to make known the virtues of this bark, and gave away great quantities of it. It is now a very important article of export from Peru, and a source of great wealth.

There are other barks of plants and trees used in medicine. A great many are useful as dyes. The inner bark of a species of oak furnishes us with corks. Some trees have aromatic barks. The black birch of our own woods is highly spiced. Of some the flavor is so pleasant that they are used as spices. Cinnamon bark, for instance, which, of course, you know all about.

So you see that even in the bark of vegetables there are pleasant things stored away, and wonderful secrets, if we choose to take the trouble to get at them.

The fragrance of a plant, if it has any, we expect to find in its blossoms. But this quality is not confined to the flowers. It is found sometimes in the leaves, occasionally in the bark, and very frequently in the fruit. We are familiar with the fragrance of strawberries, raspberries, peaches, grapes, bananas, lemons, and oranges; and many others might be named. In fact nearly all eatable fruits have some sort of a pleasant odor, though in some it is very faint.

Sometimes the fragrance is in the nuts. There are but few examples of this. The Black Walnut has an agreeable smell. The most famous of fragrant nuts is the Nutmeg, with which we are all familiar in the spice-boxes. But perhaps you don’t know how beautifully it looks growing upon the tree. So we will break off a branch for you to look at.

BRANCH OF A NUTMEG TREE.