[Footnote 2: In India, the distillers of arrack from the juice of the coco-nut palm are said, by Roxburgh, to introduce the seeds of the strychnus, in order to increase the intoxicating power of the spirit.]
In these forests the Euphorbia[1], which we are accustomed to see only as a cactus-like green-house plant, attains the size and strength of a small timber-tree; its quadrangular stem becomes circular and woody, and its square fleshy shoots take the form of branches, or rise with a rounded top as high as thirty feet.[2]
[Footnote 2: Amongst the remarkable plants of Ceylon, there is one concerning which a singular error has been perpetuated in botanical works from the time of Paul Hermann, who first described it in 1687, to the present. I mean the _kiri-anguna_ (Gymnema lactiferum), evidently a form of the G. sylvestre, to which has been given the name of the _Ceylon cow-tree_; and it is asserted that the natives drink its juice as we do milk. LOUDON (_Ency. of Plants_, p. 197) says, "The milk of the _G. lactiferum_ is used instead of the vaccine ichor, and the leaves are employed in sauces in the room of cream." And LINDLEY, in his _Vegetable Kingdom_, in speaking of the Asclepiads, says, "the cow plant of Ceylon, 'kiri-anguna,' yields a milk of which the Singhalese make use for food; and its leaves are also used when boiled." Even in the _English Cyclopædia_ of CHARLES KNIGHT, published so lately as 1854, this error is repeated. (See art. Cow-tree, p. 178.) But this in altogether a mistake;--the Ceylon plant, like many others, has acquired its epithet of _kiri_, not from the juices being susceptible of being used as a substitute for milk, but simply from its resemblance to it in colour and consistency. It is a creeper, found on the southern and western coasts, and used medicinally by the natives, but never as an article of food. The leaves, when chopped and boiled, are administered to nurses by native practitioners, and are supposed to increase the secretion of milk. As to its use, as stated by London, in lieu of the vaccine matter, it is altogether erroneous. MOON, in his _Catalogue of the Plants of Ceylon_, has accidentally mentioned the kiri-anguna twice, being misled by the Pali synonym "kiri-hangula": they are the same plant, though he has inserted them as different, p. 21.]