Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1889 — Another Belief Killed. [ARTICLE]

Another Belief Killed.

Supernatural, almost diabolical, influences are attributed to the famous upas tree, w hich, according to all accounts, is so deadly that if a hot wind passes over it an odor is carried along which is fatal to whoever breathes it. Old letters, written from Paris in 1642, by “The Turkish Spy,” describe a plant cultivated in a garden in the city that blasts all that growls within ten cubits of its roots. They call it “ill neighbor.” He declares that there was a withered circle around it, while the tree itself was green and thrifty. There is a tradition of a poison or or upas tree that grow s in the Island of java, from which a putrid steam rises and kills whomsoever it touches. Foersch, a Dutch physician (1783), says: “Not a tree or a blade of grass is to be found in the valley or surrounding mountains. Not a beast or bird or reptile or living thing lives in the vicinity. On one occasion 1,600 refugees encamped within fourteen miles of it, and all but 300 died within two months.”

The falsehood of this story is exposed by Bennett, who says": “The tree (upas) while growing, is quite inocuous, though the juice may be used for poison; the whole neighborhood is most richly covered with vegetation; men may fearlessly walk under- the tree and birds roost in its branches.” Darwin, in his “Loves of the Plants,” has perpetuated Foersch’s fable when he says:

On the blasted heath Fell Upas sits, the hydra tree of death. It is probable that the fable of the blighting influence of the upas tree has been derived from the fact that there is in Java a small tract of land on which nothing can live. This is caused, not by the “fell upas,” but by emanations of carbonic acid gas, which are constantly going on. At the same time, it is quite true that the juice of the upas is a deadly poison.— All the Year Round.