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The Upas, or Poison-Tree of Java: Antshar

I first met with the Antshar in the province of Poegar, on my way to Bangoowangee: in the province of Blambangan, I visited four or five different trees, from which this description has been made, while two of them furnished the juice for the preparation of the upas. The largest of these trees had, where the oblique appendages of the stem entered the ground, a diameter of at least ten feet; and where the regularly round and straight stem began, a distance of at least ten feet from the points of the two opposite appendages at the surface of the ground, its diameter was full three feet. I have since found a very tall tree in Passooroowang, near the boundary of Malang, and very lately I have discovered several young trees in the forests of Japara, and one tree in the vicinity of Onarang. In all these places, though the inhabitants are unacquainted with the preparation and effect of the poison, they distinguish the tree by the name of Antshar. From the tree I found in the province of Passooroowang, I collected some juice, which was nearly equal in its operation to that of Blambangan. One of the experiments to be related below, was made with the upas prepared by myself, after my return to the chief village. I had some difficulty in inducing the inhabitants to assist me in collecting the juice, as they feared a cutaneous eruption and inflammation, resembling, according to the account they gave of it, that produced by the Ingas of this island, the Rhus vernix of Japan, and the Rhus radicans of North America; but they were only affected by a slight heat and itching of the eyes. In clearing the new grounds in the environs of Bangoowangee for cultivation, it is with much difficulty the inhabitants can be made to approach the tree, as they dread the cutaneous eruption which it is known to produce when newly cut down.

But except when the tree is largely wounded, or when it is felled, by which a large portion of the juice is disengaged, the effluvia of which, mixing with the atmosphere, affects the persons exposed to it with the symptoms just mentioned, the tree may be approached and ascended like the other trees in the forests.

The Antshar, like trees in its neighbourhood, is on all sides surrounded by shrubs and plants; in no instance have I observed the ground naked or barren in its immediate circumference. The largest tree I met with in Blambangan, was so closely environed by the common trees and shrubs of the forest in 3 C 1