The New Student's Reference Work/Upas

U′pas, a tree belonging to the mulberry family, found in Java. It grows over 100 feet high, with a straight trunk and oval leaves covered with down, and a purple fruit, something like a small, rather long plum. It was long called the deadly upas and believed to be very poisonous, so that all animals going near it were killed, and even other trees and plants—travelers finding it growing solitary in a barren waste with the bones of its victims around it. But, instead, it is found growing in the forests, and animals do not seem to avoid it. Many specimens have been collected without injury, and the tree now is in the principal botanical gardens of Europe. Its poison is similar in its effects to the poison-ivy, and is found in the juice of the tree, and used by the natives on the points of their arrows. They also make a cloth from the inner bark of the tree, which, if it gets wet, produces a disagreeable itching. Bags are made from the tough bark of one species of upas. See Poisonous Plants.