The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1894-03-30
LONG LIVED FAKES.
OLD TALES OF VEGETABLE MONSTERS
TOLD AND RETOLD.

tiOnal Journalism.
Now and again the readers of a certain
class of journals are treated to startling
accounts of a remarkable tree, which is
said to possess come of the attributes of
The cuttiefish. Its branches are 1.-the and
supple as whiplashes and furnished each
with a multitude of suckers. Woe to the
man or beast that takes shelter beneath
its spreading arms, for the knowledge Of
the presence of flesh and blood is transmit
ted to every cell of its structure, and its
branches bend down to the trusting way
farer, and before he is aware of his dan
ger he is safely imprisoned in its fatal
coils. Every twig clings tightly to him by
virtue of the myriad suckers, and he is
slowly hauled up into the tree, where his
substance is gradually absorbed into the
economy of this vegetable monster. To
give a sem blance of truth to the story, ref
erence is made to a nameless explorer and
botanist who is said to have studied this
devil tree on the spot, but so far as is
known to science the story has no solid
basis whatever. Probably some highly
imaginative journalist has been reading
Mr.. Darwin's work on "Carnivorous
Plants" and giving full rein to his fancy
has achieved this improvement upon all
that Flora has done in this particular line.
But it was ever thus. Mankind, too in
dolent, as a rule to find out the wonders
that really exist in nature, has set itself
to invent less wonderful though perhaps
more richly colored fictions. Have we not
in the past had that wonderful tale of the
Scythian lamb (Agnus scythicus) half veg
etable, half animal? This little lamb was
feigned to grow upon stem about three
feet in height, the part by which it was sus-
tanned being a kind of umbilicus. 1t turn
ed about and bent its head to the heritage
and fed upon it, but should the grass dry
up or fail then the poor lamb would pine
away and die. Well, there was foundation
for that story in the woolly stock of the
cibotium, fern which creeps along the
surface of the ground For many years
this was a most cherished property of
travellers, who threw the Ratchet far and
freely concerning it. They told how this
wonderful creature flourished on a high,
uncultivated and extensive salt plain west
of the Volga, and each had his own spe-
cial version to tell of the singular appear
ance and habits of this vegetable lamb.
But in the early part of the last century a
cold blooded scientist, one DR.. Beyne of
Dantzig, gave the travellers away and spoil
ed the whole business after the manner SO
delightful to scientists.
1t would appear as though the travellers
felt the loss of the Scythian lamb acutely,
and after seeking a substitute for half a
century found it in the deadly upas tree.
This vegetable monster was introduced to
as,N,, Iryn n
Dutch surgeon, who described it as -four
ishing in a desert tract in Java, with no
other plant growing within radius of 10
or 12 miles. The gas given off from its
leaves and stems was of so virulent char
acter that of those daring enough to ven
ture near it only 10 per cent escaped with
their lives. This imaginative doctor gave
the Javanese credit for being economical
in the matter of public executioners, for
he says they offered criminals who had
been condemned to die that if they would
proceed to the upas tree and collect some
of the poison their lives should be spared
1t was from the escaped tenth that Foersch
professed to have derived his information,
and we can fully understand how some
willy eX-criminal had "loaded" him with
sensational details in return for series of
drinks or the Javanese equivalent for that
tongue loosening process.
According to this account, which Foersch
published in 1881, and which was trans
lated into many European languages, the
valley in which the upas tree grew was
strewn with the bones Of those who had
attempted to reach the tree, whose emana-
tons were so poisonous that "there are no
fish in the waters, nor has any rat, mouse
or any other vermin been seen there, and
when any birds fly so near this tree that
the effluvium reaches them they fall a sac
rifice to the effects of the poison" He
says that, on account of civil dissensions,
some l 900 persons were compelled to re-
side within II or IA miles of the fatal tree
but though they dwelt in this proximity
to the upas they could not be compelled
to live there, for in less than two months
1900 had died. From the surviving rem
nant, by a process of interviewing, Foersch
declared that he obtained his information.
He also witnessed the effects of the gum
eXuded from the tree, when exhibited, F"
as a doctor would say, to two women who
were ordered by the emperor to be executed
Foersch's stories had very wide circula-
ton during the eight years prior to their
reputation, and by that time they had got
such start that they can scarcely be said
to have been overtaken yet.
At the end Of the seventeenth century
description of the tree was published by
Neuhof, and about 100 years later Ger
vaise asserted that only to touch or smell
the tree was as effectual as to take the poi
son in the ordinary way. The REPUTATION
of Foersch was altogether too sweeping,
for he had considerable basis for his ro-
nance, but the commissioners of the Ba-
tavian society in 1889 declared that his
narratives were entirely false and denied
the existence of such poison tree in ia
va. Horsfield and Blume, however, in the
early part of the present century, gave us
the whole truth of the matter. Horsfield
describes the upas as ole of the largest
trees in the Java forests. 1t has cylin-
drical stem, rising, without branches, to
height of from go to so feet. "Close to the
ground the bark is, in old trees, more than
an inch thick, and upon being wounded
yields plentifully the milky juice from
which the celebrated poison is prepared.
In clearing new grounds near the tree the
inhabitants do not like to approach it, as
they dread the cutaneous eruption which
1t is known to produce when newly cut
down. But, except when the trunk is ex-
tensively wounded, or when it is felled, by
which large portion of the juice is dis
engaged, the effluvium Of which, mixing
with the atmosphere, affects the person ex-