Among the Trees at Elmridge Part 14

"The mulberry tree," continued their governess, "belongs to the bread-fruit family, but the other members of this remarkable family, except the Osage orange, are found only in foreign countries. The bread-fruit tree itself, the fig, the Indian fig, or banyan tree, and the deadly upas tree, are all relations of the mulberry."

"Well, trees are queer things," exclaimed Malcolm, "to belong to families that are not a bit alike."

"They are alike in important points, when we examine them carefully,"

was the reply. "The bread-fruit genus consists, with a single exception, of trees and shrubs with alternate, toothed or lobed or entire leaves and milky juice. This reminds me that the famous cow tree of South America, which yields a large supply of rich and wholesome milk, is one of the members; and you see what a number of famous trees we have on hand now. There are several kinds of mulberries--the red, black, white and paper mulberry, which are all occasionally found in this country, and they were once quite popular here for their shade. The fruit is unusually small for tree-fruit, and very soft when ripe, as you all know; it is not unlike a long, narrow blackberry, and forms, like it, a compound fruit, as though many small berries had grown together. The tree in Mrs. Bush's garden is the black mulberry, as any one might know by the stained lips and hands that sometimes come from there; and it has been cultivated from ancient times for its fine appearance and shade. It is found wild in the forests of Persia, and is thought to have been taken from there to Europe. The tree is more beautiful than useful, for the silkworms do not thrive well on the leaves and the wood is neither strong nor durable."

"Why, I thought," said Clara, "that silkworms always lived on mulberry-leaves?"

"The white mulberry is their favorite food; and another species, called the _Morus multicaulis_--for _Morus_ is the scientific name of the family--has more delicate leaves than any other, and produces a finer quality of silk. These trees are natives of China, and the white mulberry grows very rapidly to the height of thirty or forty feet. The paper mulberry is so called because in China and j.a.pan--of which it is a native--its bark is manufactured into paper. In the South-Sea Islands, where it is also found, the bark is made into the curious dresses which we sometimes see imported thence. It is a low, thick-branched tree with large light-colored downy leaves and dark-scarlet fruit."

"I wonder," said Malcolm, "if the bark is like birch-bark?"

"It does not look like it," replied Miss Harson, "but it seems to be very much of the same nature. The red mulberry and black mulberry are the most hardy of these trees, and the red mulberry will thrive farther north than any of the family. The wood is valuable for many purposes for which timber is used, and especially in boat-building. And now, as we learned something about silkworms and their coc.o.o.ns in our talks about insects[15], there is little more to be said of the mulberry tree which any but learned people would care to know."

[15] See _Flyers and Crawlers_. Presbyterian Board of Publication.

"I want to hear about the bread tree," said little Edith, "and how the loaves of bread grow on it."

"Do they, Miss Harson?" asked Clara, not exactly seeing how this could be.

"I don't believe they're very hot," remarked Malcolm, who was puzzled over the bread-fruit tree himself, but who laughed at his little sister's idea in a very knowing way. It was not an ill-natured laugh, though, and a glance from his governess always quieted him.

"No, dear," replied Miss Harson, answering Clara; "loaves of bread do not grow on any tree. But I will tell you about the bread-fruit presently; let us finish the _Morus_ family and their kindred in our own country before we go to their foreign relations. The Osage orange is so much used in the United States, and in this part of it, for hedges, on account of its rapid growth and ornamental appearance, that we really ought to know something about it. 'It is a beautiful low, spreading, round-headed tree with the port and splendor of an orange tree. Its oval, entire, polished leaves have the shining green of natives of warmer regions, and its curiously-tesselated, succulent compound fruit the size and golden color of an orange. It was first found in the country of the Osage Indians, from whom it gets its name, and it has since been cultivated in many parts of this country and in Europe. The Osages belonged to the Sioux, or Dacotah, tribe of Indians, and their home was in the south-western part of the old United States. The Osage orange--a tree from thirty to forty feet high with leaves even more bright and glossy than those of the ordinary orange--was first found growing wild near one of their villages."

"But what a very high hedge it would make!" said Malcolm.

"Yes, if left to its natural growth, it would be a very absurd fence indeed. But this is not the case; the branches spread out very widely, and by cutting off the tops and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the remainder twice in a season a very handsome thickset hedge is produced, with l.u.s.trous leaves and sharp, straight thorns. Another name for this tree is yellow-wood, or bow-wood, because the wood is of a bright-yellow color, and the grain is so fine and elastic that the Southern Indians have been in the habit of using it to make their bows. The experiment of feeding silkworms upon the leaves has been tried, but it was not very successful."

"I suppose the worms didn't know that it belonged to the mulberry family," said Clara, "and I don't see now why it does."

For reply, her governess read:

"'The sap of the young wood and of the leaves is _milky_ and contains a large proportion of caoutchouc.'"

"Oh!" exclaimed Malcolm; "that sounds just like sneezing. What is it, Miss Harson?"

"Something that you wear on your feet and over your shoulders in wet weather; so now guess."

"Overshoes!" replied Clara, in a great hurry.

"How many of them do you wear over your shoulders at once?" asked her brother. "And it must be a queer kind of sap that has overshoes in it.

Why couldn't you say 'India-rubber'?"

"And why couldn't _you_ say it before Clara put it into your head by saying 'Overshoes?" asked Miss Harson. "Clara has the right idea, only she did not express it in the clearest way. The sap of the caoutchouc, or India-rubber, tree is the most valuable yet discovered, and, as it is of a milky nature, it can very properly be brought into the present cla.s.s of trees."

"Is _that_ a mulberry too?" asked Clara, who thought that the size of the family was getting beyond all bounds.

"It is not really set down as belonging to the bread-fruit family," was the reply, "but it certainly has the peculiarity of their milky sap.

However, as I know that you are all eager to hear about the bread-fruit tree, we will take that next. This tree is found in various tropical regions, but princ.i.p.ally in the South-Sea Islands, where it is about forty feet high. The immense leaves are half a yard long and over a quarter wide, and are deeply divided into sharp lobes. The fruit looks like a very large green berry, being about the size of a cocoanut or melon, and the proper time for gathering it is about a week before it is ripe. When baked, it is not very unlike bread. It is cooked by being cut into several pieces, which are baked in an oven in the ground. It is often eaten with orange-juice and cocoanut-milk. Some of the South-Sea islanders depend very much upon it for their food. The large seeds, when roasted, are said to taste like the best chestnuts. The pulp, which is the bread-part, is said to resemble a baked potato and is very white and tender, but, unless eaten soon after the fruit is gathered, it grows hard and choky."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BREAD-FRUIT.]

"So Edie's 'loaves of bread' are green?" said Malcolm, rather teasingly.

"That's because they grow on a tree," replied Clara. "Our loaves of bread are raw dough before they're baked, and they are grains of wheat before they are dough."

"That is quite true, dear," replied her governess, laughing, "and we must teach Malcolm not to be quite so critical.--The bread-fruit is a wonderful tree, and it certainly does bear uncooked loaves of bread, at least, for they require no kneading to be ready for the oven. The fruit is to be found on the tree for eight months of the year--which is very different from any of our fruits--and two or three bread-fruit trees will supply one man with food all the year round."

"Put what does he do when there is no fresh fruit on them?" asked Malcolm. "You told us that it was not good to eat unless it was fresh."

"We should not think it good, but the native makes it into a sour paste called _mahe_, and the people of the islands eat this during the four months when the fresh fruit is not to be had. The bread-fruit is said to be very nourishing, and it can be prepared in various ways. The timber of this tree, though soft, is found useful in building houses and boats; the flowers, when dried, serve for tinder; the viscid, milky juice answers for birdlime and glue; the leaves, for towels and packing; and the inner bark, beaten together, makes one species of the South-Sea cloth."

"What a very useful tree!" exclaimed Clara.

"It is indeed," replied Miss Harson; "and this is the case with many of the trees found in these warm countries, where the inhabitants know little of the arts and manufactures, and would almost starve rather than exert themselves very greatly. There is another species of bread-fruit, called the jaca, or jack, tree, found on the mainland of Asia, which produces its fruit on different parts of the tree, according to its age.

When the tree is young, the fruit grows from the twigs; in middle age it grows from the trunk; and when the tree gets old, it grows from the roots."

[Ill.u.s.tration: JACK-FRUIT TREE.]

There was a picture of the jack tree with fruit growing out of the trunk and great branches like melons, and the children crowded eagerly around to look at it. All agreed that it was the very queerest tree they had yet heard of.

"The fruit is even larger than that of the island bread-fruit,"

continued their governess, "but it is not so pleasant to our taste, nor is it so nourishing. It often weighs over thirty pounds and has two or three hundred seeds, each of which is four times as large as an almond and is surrounded by a pulp which is greatly relished by the natives of India. The seeds, or nuts, are roasted, like those of smaller fruit, and make very good chestnuts. The fruit has a strong odor not very agreeable to noses not educated to it."

"Miss Harson," said Malcolm, "what is the upas tree like, and why is it called _deadly_?"

"It is a tree eighty feet high, with white and slightly-furrowed bark; the branches, which are very thick, grow nearly at the top, dividing into smaller ones, which form an irregular sort of crown to the tall, straight trunk. There is no reason for calling it _deadly_ except a foolish notion and the fact that a very strong poison is prepared from the milky sap. The tree grows in the island of Java, and for a long time many fabulous stories were told of its dangerous nature. Travelers in that region would send home the wildest and most improbable stories of the poison tree, until the very name of the upas was enough to make people shudder. It is said that a Dutch surgeon stationed on the island did much to keep up the impression. He wrote an account of the valley in which the upas was said to be growing alone, for no tree nor shrub was to be found near it. And he declared that neither animal nor bird could breathe the noxious effluvia from the tree without instant death. In fact, he called this fatal spot 'The Valley of Death.'"

"And wasn't it true, Miss Harson?"

"Not all true, Clara; some one who had spent many years in Java proved these stories to be entirely false. Instead of growing in a dismal valley by itself, the graceful-looking upas tree is found in the most fertile spots, among other trees, and very often climbing plants are twisted round its trunk, while birds nestle in the branches. It can be handled, too, like any other tree; and all this is as unlike the Dutch surgeon's account as possible. One of his stories was that the criminals on the island were employed to collect the poison from the trunk of the tree; that they were permitted to choose whether to die by the hand of the executioner or to go to the upas for a box of its fatal juice; and that the ground all about the tree was strewed with the dead bodies of those who had perished on this errand."

"Oh," exclaimed Edith, "wasn't that dreadful?"

"The story was dreadful, dear, but it was only a story, you know: the upas tree did not kill people at all; and to turn the milky juice into a dangerous poison took a great deal of time and trouble. It was mixed with various spices and fermented; when ready for use, it was poured into the hollow joints of bamboo and carefully kept from the air. Both for war and for the chase arrows are dipped in this fatal preparation, and the effect has been witnessed by naturalists on animals, and also on man. The instant it touches the blood it is carried through the whole system, so that it may be felt in all the veins and causes a burning sensation, especially in the head, which is followed by sickness and death."

"Well," said Clara, drawing a long breath, "I'm glad that I don't live in Java."

"The poisoned arrows are not constantly flying about in Java, dear,"

replied her governess, with a smile, "and I do not think you would be in any danger from them; but there are a great many other reasons why it is not pleasant, except for natives, to live in Java. There are a number of Dutch settlers there, because the island was conquered by the Dutch nation, but while war with the natives was going on they suffered terribly from these poisoned arrows; so that the very name of upas caused them to tremble. The word 'upas,' in the language of the natives, means poison, and there is in the island a valley called the upas, or poison, valley. It has nothing, however, to do with the tree, which does not grow anywhere in the neighborhood. That valley may literally be called 'The Valley of Death.' We are told that it came to exist in this way: The largest mountain in Java was once partly buried in a very dreadful manner. In the middle of a summer night the people in the neighborhood perceived a luminous cloud that seemed wholly to envelop the mountain. They were extremely alarmed and took to flight, but ere they could escape a terrific noise was heard, like the discharge of cannon, and part of the mountain fell in and disappeared. At the same moment quant.i.ties of stones and lava were thrown to the distance of several miles. Fifteen miles of ground covered with villages and plantations were swallowed up or buried under the lava from the mountain; and when all was over and people tried to visit the scene of the disaster, they could not approach it on account of the heat of the stones and other substances piled upon one another. And yet as much as six weeks had elapsed since the catastrophe. This upas valley is about half a mile in circ.u.mference, and the vapor that escapes through the cracks and fissures is fatal to every living thing. Here, indeed, are to be seen the bones of animals and birds, and even the skeletons of human beings who were unfortunate enough to enter and were overpowered by the deadly vapor. And now," added Miss Harson, "I have given you this account to make you understand that the famous upas valley of Java is not a valley of upas trees, but one of poisonous vapors."

"And the deadly upas," said Malcolm, "is not deadly, after all! I think I shall remember that."

"And I too," said Clara and Edith, who had listened with great interest to the description.

"Shall we have some figs now, by way of variety?" was a question that caused three pairs of eyes to turn rather expectantly on the speaker; for figs were very popular with the small people of Elmridge.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BANYAN TREE.]