Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-07-31
NASSAU'S CURIOSITIES.
QUEER FRUITS, VEGETABLES, ETC.,
FURNISHED BY DAME NATURE.

Ready Made Frames for Houses-A Vege-
table Tooth Brush - Marbles Ready
Grown-Laco from Bark Vegetable
Sponge-Flowers for Boot Blacking.
Nature in her all enfolding benefcence
here has trees which form roof, corner posts
and studding, only requiring ciapooards to
close them in, and as if realizing that fresh
circulating air is best, hints OF living under
them just as they are. The giant ceiba sends
out from its base great plank like buttreSses,
which form stalls in which to stable cattle.
A wide spreading, low branching tree-it
might be an oak except for the curious wheel
like fruit tipping the branchlets, green and
poison when young, gray and explosive
when rpe-the fruit is a capsule made up OF
deeply grooved series of nuts, tat and
round, disposed on edge in circle, cinging
to O central disk which is followed and par
titioned; when fully ripe the capsule ex-
plodes with a report like a pistol, and the
nutlets scattered far and wide, open and let
the kernels drop-a reasonable way in which
nature provides for the replanting OF new
trees This fruit is called the sand box"
because in old Freebooter times they were
used TO hold black iron ore sand, with which
writing was sanded instead Of blotted Even
now by loading the fresh dry capsules with
lead, so as to prevent its explosion, they form
quaint paper weights This fruit is also
called the monkeys dinner bell, because
where the tree abounds in the tropics mon
keys abound also, and when they hear the ex-
plosion they hasten to diuner-it's nuts" for
them.
A VEGETABLE TOOTH BRUSH
The chaw stick is vegetable tooth brush.
The negroes here noted for fine white teeth,
and often you will see them with a piece Of
chaw stick in the mouth. The plant has a
flexible stem which climbs by tendrils This
looks like licorice root This cut into six
inch lengths, the ends chewed, furnish a
fbrous vegetable brush. 1t contains an aro-
matte, slightly bitter principle allied to soap
in its effect; hence chewing it, as we say of q
fayorite dentifrice makes the teeth clean,
the mouth sweet, the breath fragrant The
colored folks at public festivals sell small
beer of various havors on the street, and with
this chaw stick they give it frotn.
The children have living fountain OF
chewing gum trees. There is in the hospital
grounds fine example of ficus lndica, the fg
which Yields India rubber The leaves large,
oval, GulSh, e$AAA 49, CO. $3.50
roots spread over much surface The chill
dren scrape off little bark, the milk flows,
and they let it run oyer the fingers and
palms. When saw this done | thought it
would be a long job to get those hands free
from the sticky stuff. But 10! on exposure
to the air few minutes. rubbing the hands
together meanwhile, the milk became dark
gray and presently peeled Off and left the
a acr
improvement over soap anc towels.
The boys find ready grown marbles, yell
low, gray and red, hiding from them in the
thickest of goulanuia, or Bonduc vines
Each prickly pod has from one to three
'nickers," or nuts-hard, round and smooth
Necklaces, brooches and ear rings are also
formed of them.
NATURES MANY CONvENIENCEs.
To fish without LABOR would bruise the
root bark of Jamaica dogwood and throw 1T
into the water, to be sure of Supplying all
the fish within its influence, without jurinS
them as food This tree is common in Mas
sau-Piscidia erythrAa-and its bark is now
considerably used as an oplate in medicine
Curiously enough, the odor of the bark is
similar to that of opium. For sponge |
need not 60 to the sea, but whip against
a stone the ripe fruit Of the Egyptian
luffa. which So commonly here reaches its
squash like vine into the sapodilia trees This
then freed from seed and peel gives me a
wash rag or vegetable sponge-for both kit
chen or bath. Bottles, bowls, jugs and cook
ing pans grow on trees-the calabaSh trees.
Bread already leavened, but not baked,
hangs in great loaves on the artocarpus, or
bread fruit tree-a glorious picture it is,
with its immense, deeply cut leaves. So
called strawberries grow like currant clus-
tiers on trees are yellow instead Of red and
sour instead of sweet. Would you drink am
brosia, fit for the gods! Send black Hehe
into a plumy cocoanut tree to fling down a
nut Sin the milk" Should l need light
have only to rob the bayberry of its green
ish wax, or string together some nuts of the
candle tree with cotton wicking. a torch Of
pitch pine need be no larger than pencil.
Would have lace7 A coIored woman will
take gray, smooth branch of the Logetta,
and from the spread peeled bark, moistened
and beaten on stone, unfold twenty lay
ers of white flmy lace, as delicate and ele-
CANT as point. Would you have a dowpy
pillow? Watch till the round ovate pointed
pods of the silk cotton tree Bombay criba)
ripens, and while you hold i. in yonr hand
maybe it will quietly open, as it did in mine,
and out gushing comes a brown, siiken misty
cloud. yelling up and over, falling slowly at
| your feet With a sigh Of surprise you won
der where or how that big basket full of silky
down could have been packed into that little
empty pod in your hand
There is an e1quisitely rich, crimson hibis-
Gus here, called the changeable rose, ex-
tremely ornamental on lawns and shrubber-
ies: and vet to what base uses may We come"
the flowers bruised are used to blacken and
polish boots-Frederick Stearns in Detroit
Free Press