ITPAS (the Malay word for poison) is the name given to a number of vegetable poisons in the Eastern archipelago and. the Philippine islands. The most celebrated poison of this kind is produced by the anyar (aatiaris toxicaria), a tree which grows In the Sunda and Philippine islands. It attains a height of upward of 100 ft., and belongs to the natural order ARTOCARPACE.E (q.v.), the same order with the bread-fruit. The leaves are lanceolate. The female flowers are solitary; the male flowers congregated beneath them iu numbers upon the receptacle, which has a long stalk, and is of the• shape of a watch-glass. The fruit is a kind of drupe, covered with fleshy scales. From the milky juice of this tree (called in some of the islands pohon-upas an jar in Java, and ipo in the Philippines), mixed with black pepper, and the juice of galanga root and of ginger, the Malays prepare a poison for their arrows, which proves speedily fatal men and to the larger mammalia. The only hope of relief is by meant of severe vomit ings and the excitement of profuse perspiration. Although the fresh juice of this tree, brought into contact with the skin, acts as a poison, the story of a poison-vale in Java, in which the exhalations of numerous poison trees extinguish all animal life, and even all other vegetable life, is a mere fable. There is a narrow valley in Java where neither
animal nor vegetable life can subsist, but this is owing to carbonic acid gas emitted from the ground, as in the Grotto del Cane, near Naples, and the upas-tree is as incapa ble of living there as any other. It is found in forests, and does no harm to the other trees around it. The prepared upas or antjar poison is kept in close tubes of bamboo, and is of the consistence of molasses. The flesh of animals killed by this poison may be eaten with perfect safety; although the virulence of the poison is shown by its extremely rapid action. It is not perfectly known what the substance is which gives to the juice of the upas tree its poisonous properties, but it appears to be an alkaloid. The fiber of the bark of the upas tree is sometimes made into cloth, but unless the fiber is thoroughly cleaned, garments made of it produce a painful itching. A still more powerful poison than the upas autjar, employed in the same part of the world, is the apes tjettek or upas tieate, which is prepared in a similar manner from the root of the strychnos tieute (see SzurcH.Nos). It abounds in strychnine.