Lo! from one root, the envenom'd soil below,
A thousand vegetative serpents grow ..." etc.
Darwin, Loves of the Plants;
in The Botanic Garden, Pt. II.
1808.—"Notice sur le Pohon Upas ou Arbre à Poison; Extrait d'un Voyage inédit dans l'Intérieur de l'Ile de Java, par L. A. Deschamps, D.M.P., l'un des compagnons du Voyage du Général d'Entrecasteaux.
"C'est au fond des sombre forêts de l'ile de Java que la nature a caché le pohun upas, l'arbre le plus dangereux du règne végétal, pour le poison mortel qu'il renferme, et plus celèbre encore par les fables dont on l'a rendu le sujet...."—Annales des Voyages, i. 69.
1810.—"Le poison fameux dont se servent les Indiens de l'Archipel des Moluques, et des iles de la Sonde, connu sous le nom d'ipo et upas, a interessé plus que tous les autres la curiosité des Européens, parce que les relations qu'on en a donné ont été exagérées et accompagnées de ce merveilleux dont les peuples de l'Inde aiment à orner leurs narrations...."—Leschenault de la Tour, in Mémoire sur le Strychnos Tieute et l'Antiaris toxicaria, plantes venimeuses de l'Ile de Java.... In Annales du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, Tom. XVIième, p. 459.
1813.—"The literary and scientific world has in few instances been more grossly imposed upon than in the account of the Pohon Upas, published in Holland about the year 1780. The history and origin of this forgery still remains a mystery. Foersch, who put his name to the publication, certainly was ... a surgeon in the Dutch East India Company's service about the time.... I have been led to suppose that his literary abilities were as mean as his contempt for truth was consummate. Having hastily picked up some vague information regarding the Oopas, he carried it to Europe, where his notes were arranged, doubtless by a different hand, in such a form as by their plausibility and appearance of truth, to be generally credited.... But though the account just mentioned ... has been demonstrated to be an extravagant forgery, the existence of a tree in Java, from whose sap a poison is prepared, equal in fatality, when thrown into the circulation, to the strongest animal poisons hitherto known, is a fact."—Horsfield, in Batavian Trans. vol. vii. art. x. pp. 2-4.
1822.—"The Law of Java," a Play ... Scene. Kérta-Sûra, and a desolate Tract in the Island of Java.
* * * * *