The treasury of botany: a popular dictionary of the vegetable kingdom; with which is incorporated a glossary of botanical terms . ll. It wilt growin any light soil. [C. A. J.] ANTIARIS, the artocarpaceous genus ofplants to which the Upas-tree of Javabelongs. The stamens and pistils are inseparate flowers, on the same tree. Themale flowers are numerous, and enclosedwithin a hairy involucre, formed of severalfleshy divisions, rolled inwards. Thecalyx is in three or four pieces, and en-closes an equal number of stalkless an-thers. The female flower has an adherentcalyx of several leaves, and is t
The treasury of botany: a popular dictionary of the vegetable kingdom; with which is incorporated a glossary of botanical terms . ll. It wilt growin any light soil. [C. A. J.] ANTIARIS, the artocarpaceous genus ofplants to which the Upas-tree of Javabelongs. The stamens and pistils are inseparate flowers, on the same tree. Themale flowers are numerous, and enclosedwithin a hairy involucre, formed of severalfleshy divisions, rolled inwards. Thecalyx is in three or four pieces, and en-closes an equal number of stalkless an-thers. The female flower has an adherentcalyx of several leaves, and is terminatedby a long two-parted style. It contains asingle suspended ovule, and becomes con-verted when ripe into a succulent drupe-like fruit. The female flowers are solitar3r,placed in the axils of the leaves, side byside with the heads of male floMrers. The Upas-tree, when pierced, exudes amilky juice, which contains an acrid viru-lent poison, called antiarin. Most ex-aggerated statements respectiug this plantwere circulated by a Dutch surgeon aboutthe close of the last century. The treewas described as growing in a desert. ANTIARIS & COFFEE PLANTATION IN JAVA BLUME) tract, with no other plant near it for thedistance of ten or twelve miles. Criminalscondemned to die were offered the chanceof life if they would go to the Upas-treeand collect some of the poison. They werefurnished with proper directions, andarmed with due precaution, but not morethan two out of every twenty ever re-turned. The Dutch surgeon, Foersch, statesthat he had derived his information fromsome of those who had been lucky enoughto escape, albeit the ground around wasstrewn with the bones of their predeces-sors ; and such was the virulence of thepoison, that there are no fish in the waters,nor has any rat, mouse, or any other ver-min been seen there; and when any birdsfly so near this tree that the effluviareaches them, they fall a sacrifice to theeffects of the poison. Out of a populationof 1,600 persons,
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