2: In India, the distillers of arrack from the juice of the coco-nut palm are said, by Roxburgh, to introduce the seeds of the strychnus, in order to increase the intoxicating power of the spirit.
In these forests the Euphorbia[1], which we are accustomed to see only as a cactus-like green-house plant, attains the size and strength of a small timber-tree; its quadrangular stem becomes circular and woody, and its square fleshy shoots take the form of branches, or rise with a rounded top as high as thirty feet.[2]
1: E. Antiquorun.
2: Amongst the remarkable plants of Ceylon, there is one concerning which a singular error has been perpetuated in botanical works from the time of Paul Hermann, who first described it in 1687, to the present. I mean the kiri-anguna (Gymnema lactiferum), evidently a form of the G. sylvestre, to which has been given the name of the Ceylon cow-tree; and it is asserted that the natives drink its juice as we do milk. LOUDON (Ency. of Plants, p. 197) says, "The milk of the G. lactiferum is used instead of the vaccine ichor, and the leaves are employed in sauces in the room of cream." And LINDLEY, in his Vegetable Kingdom, in speaking of the Asclepiads, says, "the cow plant of Ceylon, 'kiri-anguna,' yields a milk of which the Singhalese make use for food; and its leaves are also used when boiled." Even in the English Cyclopædia of CHARLES KNIGHT, published so lately as 1854, this error is repeated. (See art. Cow-tree, p. 178.) But this in altogether a mistake;—the Ceylon plant, like many others, has acquired its epithet of kiri, not from the juices being susceptible of being used as a substitute for milk, but simply from its resemblance to it in colour and consistency. It is a creeper, found on the southern and western coasts, and used medicinally by the natives, but never as an article of food. The leaves, when chopped and boiled, are administered to nurses by native practitioners, and are supposed to increase the secretion of milk. As to its use, as stated by London, in lieu of the vaccine matter, it is altogether erroneous. MOON, in his Catalogue of the Plants of Ceylon, has accidentally mentioned the kiri-anguna twice, being misled by the Pali synonym "kiri-hangula": they are the same plant, though he has inserted them as different, p. 21.
But that which arrests the attention even of an indifferent passer-by is the endless variety and almost inconceivable size and luxuriance of the climbing plants and epiphytes which live upon the forest trees in every part of the island. It is rare to see a single tree without its families of dependents of this description, and on one occasion I counted on a single prostrate stem no less than sixteen species of Capparis, Beaumontia, Bignonia, Ipomoea, and other genera, which, in its fall, it had brought along with it to the ground. Those which are free from climbing plants have their higher branches and hollows occupied by ferns and orchids, of which latter the variety is endless in Ceylon, though the beauty of their flower is not equal to those of Brazil and other tropical countries. In the many excursions which I made with Dr. Gardner he added numerous species to those already known, including the exquisite Saccolabium guttatum, which we came upon in the vicinity of Bintenne, but which had before been discovered in Java and the mountains of northern India. Its large groups of lilac flowers hung in rich festoons from the branches as we rode under them, and caused us many an involuntary halt to admire and secure the plants.
A rich harvest of botanical discovery still remains for the scientific explorer of the districts south and east of Adam's Peak, whence Dr. Gardner's successor, Mr. Thwaites, has already brought some remarkable species. Many of the Ceylon orchids, like those of South America, exhibit a grotesque similitude to various animals; and one, a Dendrobium., which the Singhalese cultivate in the palms near their dwelling, bears a name equivalent to the White-pigeon flower, from the resemblance which its clusters present to a group of those birds in miniature clinging to the stem with wings at rest.
But of this order the most exquisite plant I have seen is the Anæctochilus setaceus, a terrestrial orchid which is to be found about the moist roots of the forest trees, and has drawn the attention of even the apathetic Singhalese, among whom its singular beauty has won for it the popular name of the Wanna Raja, or "King of the Forest." It is common in humid and shady places a few miles removed from the sea-coast; its flowers have no particular attraction, but its leaves are perhaps the most exquisitely formed in the vegetable kingdom; their colour resembles dark velvet, approaching to black, and reticulated over all the surface with veins of ruddy gold.[1]
1: There is another small orchid bearing a slight resemblance to the wanna raja, which is often found growing along with it, called by the Singhalese iri raja, or "striped king." Its leaves are somewhat bronzed, but they are longer and narrower than those of the wanna raja; and, as its Singhalese name implies, it has two white stripes running through the length of each. They are not of the same genus; the wanna raja being the only species of Anæctochilus yet found in Ceylon.