CHAPTER III.

VEGETABLE LIFE IN THE FORESTS OF THE GREAT ISLANDS.

I have said that under the same parallels of latitude, or under neighbouring parallels, the physiognomy of the virgin forests was everywhere nearly the same, and hence we must study from a point close at hand the species which compose them, to determine the distinctive characters of the great agglomerations of vegetables peculiar to different countries. And yet the traveller who, after having explored the primeval forests of Africa and Asia, should be transported to the wild and wooded regions of the great Indian Archipelago and the Pacific Ocean, could not fail to be struck with the novel spectacle presented to his gaze. Undoubtedly he would meet, at first, with a great number of plants not unknown to him; but he would not fail to discover many others which he had not hitherto observed, and especially would he contemplate with astonishment--perhaps with admiration--the chaos of this rich, various, dense, but disordered vegetation. It seems, in truth, as if within these "summer isles of Eden" Nature had hastened to accumulate her choicest products, and feeling herself restricted within narrow limits, had carefully laboured not to lose the smallest particle of space--not even of the aërial territory, if I may so speak--allotted to her. Not only are the trees set in the closest possible array, but they struggle with wonderful effort to develop the exuberance of their strength. Nearly all display an abundant and persistent foliage; their branches are, in general, thick and spongy, and begin to shoot at the base of the trunk; in such wise that the lower boughs extend close to the ground, and by interlacing with those of neighbouring trees, form impenetrable thickets. Many send forth, from their trunk and their branches, frail flexible roots like the lianas, which descend to the earth, plant themselves in the soil, and contribute to render the forests absolutely impervious. Nor is this all; the plants grow there, literally, one upon another. Nowhere, under the Tropics, does one see a similar profusion of epiphytous plants; not a single tree but is invaded by the close-clinging roots and flexible ramifications of these parasites, mingled with brightly-blossoming lianas, whose multifold stems are of immeasurable length. Species worthy of note, either on account of their beauty, their various uses, or formidable poisonous properties, and belonging to widely-differing families, abound, moreover, in these perennial forests.

Ceylon, which has justly been named by the Orientals "a pearl detached from Hindostan," so admirable is its situation, so marvellous is its fertility, so exhaustless its mineral wealth, is the native country of the _Laurus cinnamomum_--which was early transplanted to the neighbouring continent--and of the Artocarpus, or Bread-fruit tree, one of the most curious and most useful plants of this region.

The Bread-fruit Tree (_Artocarpus incisa_) is a tree of the family _Muriaceæ_, some 45 to 55 feet high. Make an incision in its bark, wherever you will, and it exudes a white lacteal fluid, which hardens on exposure to the air. Its branches are very numerous, and those nearest its base attain a considerable length. Its leaves are large, consistent, and somewhat deeply cut. It owes its name of "Bread-fruit tree" to its ovoid or rounded fruit, about the size of an ostrich's egg, which forms the staple food of the Cingalese. When fully ripe, the pulp or flesh is white, firm, farinaceous, and very agreeable to the taste. The natives boil it whole, or cut it into slices for roasting, and prepare it for the table in numerous other modes. Two or three trees, it is said, suffice for the provisioning of one man. My readers will remember that its introduction in the West Indian Islands was signalized by the famous Mutiny of the Bounty, and led indirectly to the settlement of Pitcairn's Island; thus originating a strange and sufficiently poetical romance.

In the forests of Ceylon also flourish the _Cambogia Guttu_, the _Stalagmites Cambogioides_, and the _Garcinia morella_ (family _Guttiferæ_), whence camboge is extracted. This substance, at once medicinal and tinctorial, exudes in a liquid state from wounds made in the bark of the trees; it solidifies spontaneously in the vessels wherein it is collected.

Immense forests overspread the humid plains of Sumatra. They are constituted in the main of numerous species of Fig-trees (_Ficoidæ_), whose abundant and persistent leaves form an obscure vault, impenetrable by the sun's "golden arrows." Above this leafy dome shoot the rigid trunks of trees of lofty stature. Of these, the most remarkable, perhaps, is the Ipo-antiar (_Antiaris toxicaria_), whose juice, after having undergone certain preparations, becomes one of the deadliest known poisons. It was for a long time unknown with what substance the Malays envenomed their arrows and their famous _kris_, or crease; nor was it until the beginning of the present century that the traveller Leschenault ascertained, not without difficulty, that it had for its basis the juice of a very tall tree, with decaying leaves, to which he gave the name of _Antiaris toxicaria_. This is the celebrated Upas, whose deadly properties were formerly exaggerated in so many wonderful fables. The poison is prepared in an earthen vessel, and mixed up with certain quantities of the seed of the pimento and the pepper tree, and the roots of various kinds of ginger. These are mixed together slowly, except the pimento-grains, which are precipitated one by one to the bottom of the vessel by means of a small stick. Each grain produces a slight fermentation, and rises to the surface. It is then extracted, to be plunged anew into the mixture, and this process is eight or nine times repeated; after which the mixture is complete. It appears that the Upas-antiar, taken internally, acts at first as a purgative, but afterwards its influence extends to the brain, and produces death with frightful tetanic convulsions. Introduced into the blood through a wound, it kills small animals in a few moments, and men in a few hours.

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.

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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.

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.

In the Philippines vegetation is singularly favoured by the humidity of the climate and the elevation of the temperature, so that the Flora of these richly-endowed islands displays a prodigious variety. Not a single family of tropical plants but is here represented by several species. Hill and valley and plain alike are characterized by the exuberant growth of leaf and fruit and flower; the graceful forms might have enchanted an ancient Greek, the wealth of glowing and intense colour would have fired the imagination of Turner, and defied the palette of Titian or Tintoretto. There are landscapes of such beauty and fertility as the fancy of artist or poet never conceived. Ferns and Orchids are, perhaps, even more abundant here than in the forests of Java, Borneo, or Sumatra. The Bamboo attains to unusual proportions; the Areca (_Areca catechu_) raises to the sky its tall shapely stem, crested with plume-like leaves; and the Betel-nut tree supplies in profusion the grains which, mixed with the fruits of the gigantic palm, constitute the _Pinangue_; a kind of _quid_, which the Orientals chew delightedly, and to which they attribute very valuable stomachic and digestive properties. Under the dense shade of the great forests we are amazed by untold numbers of various kinds of plants, all adorned by richly coloured leaves, which invest the scene with a singular charm, nay, with something of a fairy character; and amongst these we single out the _Dracæna terminalis_, with its blood-empurpled foliage, which, recently introduced into Europe, has already become one of the greatest ornaments of our parks and gardens.

I have previously had occasion to remark the singularity of character which in Australia distinguishes almost every member either of the vegetable or the animal kingdom. I have already said that this immense island-continent seems to have been the chosen theatre for a distinct creative display, where every type differs from the representatives of our scientific classifications in other parts of the globe. The reader has been able to form some idea of the fancifulness of the vegetable forms peculiar to the Australian savannahs. Nor are those which constitute the so-called forests less strangely fantastic. On the southern coast, which is the coolest, the forests are of very moderate extent. In fact, they may be more correctly described as enormous thickets scattered in tolerably sheltered localities. Most of the trees which compose them have trunks of great feebleness compared with their height, which is often prodigious, and they do not begin to ramify until near their summits. Their bark is smooth, and usually of a grayish-white. Of all their species it can only be said that two--the _Stadmannia austral_ and the _Alectryon_--bear fruit which men can eat even under the pressure of hunger. Finally--and this without doubt is the most singular feature of a truly exceptional vegetation--while all the trees and herbaceous plants of the Old and New Worlds develop their leaves horizontally, or on a plane tangent to the cylindrical surface of the trunk or stem, in Australia the leaves of the trees are disposed vertically; in such wise that they give scarcely any shade, and yet are themselves exposed in the very slightest degree to the action of the solar rays. It is owing to this latter circumstance they are always weakly coloured; and thus they give to the densest forests and the most robust trees a sickly tint, a sort of pallor of disease, which saddens the gaze accustomed to the varied tones and vivid hues of the verdure of tropical forests, or to the bold contrasts of light and shade exhibited by the woods of Europe and North America.

The Australian species are comprised in a small number of families, notably in those of the Coniferæ and Myrtaceæ. Certain forests are wholly composed of Casuarinas; others, of Acacias; others again, of Eucalypti. Some of the latter trees may be ranged among the greatest with which botanists are acquainted. The Blue Gum (_Eucalyptus globulus_) attains, for instance, the extraordinary stature of upwards of 300 feet, and does not send out a single branch until half this distance from the ground. Its upright cylindrical trunk furnishes a timber much appreciated by ship-wrights, and especially makes admirable masts. The Eucalypti secrete in abundance a white, sugary, and aromatic substance; whence they derive their popular name of "gum trees"--a name which is also bestowed very frequently upon the gum-bearing Acacias.

The family of Coniferæ exhibit themselves in Australia, like every other group of plants, under strange and novel forms. The shape of those trees is generally fusiform and pyramidal; their leaves are sometimes extraordinarily small, sometimes large and flattened. Many are of great size; none, however, attaining the gigantic proportions of the celebrated columnar Pine of New Caledonia, which Cook's companions mistook for a colossal mass of basaltic pillars, and which Moore, like a true son of industrious Albion, compared to an enormous factory-chimney. This tree exceeds 160 feet in height, and its ramifications, all of the same height, radiate regularly around its trunk, from the base even to the summit.

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I have now to ask the reader's companionship on an excursion into the forests of the great African island of Madagascar. The insalubrity of the climate and the jealous inhospitality of the inhabitants will not permit us to penetrate far into their luxuriant depths; but the most superficial glance will satisfy us upon their wild magnificence and the original variety of their superb flora.[167]

We should seek in vain among their leafy, blossoming glades, for the famous Manchineal, a member of the American _Euphorbiaceæ_, which holds a high place in the records of vegetable poisons; but the toxicological amateur will find ample compensation in examining the formidable Tanghin,[168] whose deadly juice, mixed with some other substances, plays an important part in the judicial ordeals popular among the Malagasy.

The Tanghin, or Tanguen (_T. venenifera_), is the only plant of its genus, and is confined to Madagascar. It is described as a tree with smooth alternate leaves of moderate thickness, clustered towards the points of the branches, with large terminal cymes of flowers, having a salver-shaped corolla, with rose-coloured lobes. The ovary is twofold, with a long style and thick stigma; but usually only one attains to perfection, and forms an ellipsoid fruit, somewhat pointed at the ends, invested in a smooth purplish-green skin, and containing a hard stone surrounded by a thick fibrous pulp. The poisonous seed of the Tanghin is esteemed by the natives an infallible criterion of guilt or innocence. After being pounded, a small piece is swallowed by the supposed criminal. If he be cursed with a strong stomach, which retains the poison, he speedily dies, and is held guilty; if his feeble digestion rejects it, he necessarily escapes, and his innocence is considered proven.

Beneficent Nature has planted by the side of this fatal tree a species of infinite value, the _Ravenala Madagascariensis_, or "Traveller's-Tree," which derives the latter designation from the base of the petiole of its large leaves, expanded and hollowed out into a kind of gutter, being constantly filled with fresh water, and serving as a reservoir for the thirsty wayfarer. The Vacquois, or Vacoa (_Pandanus utilis_), one of the Screw-Pines, is of much utility to the natives, who fabricate sacks and bags out of its tenacious leaves. The manufacture of these bags is a source of comparative wealth for the poorer inhabitants of Madagascar, and to a still greater extent for those of Réunion and the Mauritius, whence they are exported annually by millions.

The Malagasy forests also include several resinous species; among others, the Copal-Tree, which furnishes the well-known gum used in Europe as a varnish; and the _Vahea_, a genus of Apocynaceæ, yielding caoutchouc, which will hereafter figure largely in the exports from this magnificent island. There are two species, namely, _Vahea Madagascariensis_--the "Voua Héri" of the natives--and _Vahea gummifera_. Numerous lianas, and a multitude of epiphytous plants, ferns, and orchids, envelop and intertangle the trunks of the great trees. I shall specify only the Beaded Liana (_Abrus precatorius_), whose small hard fruits, rounded and of a scarlet red, make graceful wreaths and necklaces; the _Angræcum sesquipedale_ (an orchid), with bright irregular flowers; and the _Angræcum fragrans_, whose perfumed leaves supply a wholesome and savoury infusion. Finally, the _Heritiera argentea_, a tree about as large as our lindens, which certain botanists place among the Byttneriaceæ, and others among the Sterculiaceæ, is noticeable on account of its abundant foliage glittering silver-white.