Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History Part 12

Some of the trees found in the forests of the interior are remarkable for the curious forms in which they produce their seeds. One of these, which sometimes grows to the height of one hundred feet without throwing out a single branch, has been confounded with the durian of the Eastern Archipelago, or supposed to be an allied species[1], but it differs from it in the important particular that its fruit is not edible. The real durian is not indigenous to Ceylon, but was brought there by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century.[2] It has been very recently re-introduced, and is now cultivated successfully. The native name for the Singhalese tree, "Katu-boeda," denotes the p.r.i.c.kles that cover its fruit, which is as large as a coco-nut, and set with thorns each nearly an inch in length.

[Footnote 1: It is the _Cullenia excelsa_ of WIGHT's _Icones, &c._ (761-2).]

[Footnote 2: PORCACCHI, in his _Isolario_, written in the sixteenth century, enumerates the true durian as being then amongst the ordinary fruit of Ceylon.--"Vi nasce anchora un frutto detto Duriano, verde et grande come quei cocomeri, che a Venetia son chiamati angurie: in mezo del quale trouano dentro cinque frutti de sapor molto excellente."--Lib.

iii. p. 188. Padua, A.D. 1619.]

The _Sterculia foetida,_ one of the finest and n.o.blest of the Ceylon forest-trees, produces from the end of its branches large bunches of dark purple flowers of extreme richness and beauty; but emitting a stench so intolerable as richly to ent.i.tle it to its very characteristic botanical name. The fruit is equally remarkable, and consists of several crimson cases of the consistency of leather, within which are enclosed a number of black bean-like seeds: these are dispersed by the bursting of their envelope, which splits open to liberate them when sufficiently ripened.

The Moodilla (_Barringtonia speciosa_) is another tree which attracts the eye of the traveller, not less from the remarkably shaped fruit which it bears than from the contrast between its dark glossy leaves and the delicate flowers which they surround. The latter are white, tipped with crimson, but the petals drop off early, and the stamens, of which there are nearly a hundred to each flower, when they fall to the ground might almost be mistaken for painters' brushes. The tree (as its name implies) loves the sh.o.r.e of the sea, and its large quadrangular fruits, of pyramidal form, being protected by a hard fibrous covering, are tossed by the waves till they root themselves on the beach. It grows freely at the mouths of the princ.i.p.al rivers on the west coast, and several n.o.ble specimens of it are found near the fort of Colombo.

The G.o.da-kaduru, or _Strychnos nux-vomica_ is abundant in these prodigious forests, and has obtained an European celebrity on account of its producing the poisonous seeds from which strychnine is extracted.

Its fruit, which it exhibits in great profusion, is of the size and colour of a small orange, within which a pulpy substance envelopes the seeds that form the "nux-vomica" of commerce. It grows in great luxuriance in the vicinity of the ruined tanks throughout the Wanny, and on the west coast as far south as Negombo. It is singular that in this genus there should be found two plants, the seeds of one being not only harmless but wholesome, and that of the other the most formidable of known poisons.[1] Amongst the Malabar immigrants there is a belief that the seeds of the G.o.da-kaduru, if habitually taken, will act as a prophylactic against the venom of the cobra de capello; and I have been a.s.sured that the coolies coming from the coast of India accustom themselves to eat a single seed per day in order to acquire the desired protection from the effects of this serpent's bite.[2]

[Footnote 1: The _tettan-cotta,_ the use of which is described in Vol.

II. Pt. ix. ch. i. p. 411, when applied by the natives to clarify muddy water, is the seed of another species of strychnos, _S. potatorum_. The Singhalese name is _ingini_ (_tettan-cotta_ is Tamil).]

[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 1: E. Antiquorun.]

[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 a.s.serted 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 Cyclopaedia_ 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 subst.i.tute 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 pract.i.tioners, 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.]

But that which arrests the attention even of an indifferent pa.s.ser-by is the endless variety and almost inconceivable size and luxuriance of the _climbing plants and epiphytes_ which live upon the forest trees in every part of the island. It is rare to see a single tree without its families of dependents of this description, and on one occasion I counted on a single prostrate stem no less than sixteen species of Capparis, Beaumontia, Bignonia, Ipomoea, and other genera, which, in its fall, it had brought along with it to the ground. Those which are free from climbing plants have their higher branches and hollows occupied by ferns and orchids, of which latter the variety is endless in Ceylon, though the beauty of their flower is not equal to those of Brazil and other tropical countries. In the many excursions which I made with Dr.

Gardner he added numerous species to those already known, including the exquisite _Saccolabium guttatum_, which we came upon in the vicinity of Bintenne, but which had before been discovered in Java and the mountains of northern India. Its large groups of lilac flowers hung in rich festoons from the branches as we rode under them, and caused us many an involuntary halt to admire and secure the plants.

A rich harvest of botanical discovery still remains for the scientific explorer of the districts south and east of Adam's Peak, whence Dr.

Gardner's successor, Mr. Thwaites, has already brought some remarkable species. Many of the Ceylon orchids, like those of South America, exhibit a grotesque similitude to various animals; and one, a _Dendrobium_., which the Singhalese cultivate in the palms near their dwelling, bears a name equivalent to the _White-pigeon flower,_ from the resemblance which its cl.u.s.ters present to a group of those birds in miniature clinging to the stem with wings at rest.

But of this order the most exquisite plant I have seen is the _Anaectochilus setaceus_, a terrestrial orchid which is to be found about the moist roots of the forest trees, and has drawn the attention of even the apathetic Singhalese, among whom its singular beauty has won for it the popular name of the Wanna Raja, or "King of the Forest." It is common in humid and shady places a few miles removed from the sea-coast; its flowers have no particular attraction, but its leaves are perhaps the most exquisitely formed in the vegetable kingdom; their colour resembles dark velvet, approaching to black, and reticulated over all the surface with veins of ruddy gold.[1]

[Footnote 1: There is another small orchid bearing a slight resemblance to the wanna raja, which is often found growing along with it, called by the Singhalese iri raja, or "striped king." Its leaves are somewhat bronzed, but they are longer and narrower than those of the wanna raja; and, as its Singhalese name implies, it has two white stripes running through the length of each. They are not of the same genus; the wanna raja being the only species of _Anaectochilus_ yet found in Ceylon.]

The branches of all the lower trees and brushwood are so densely covered with convolvuli, and similar delicate climbers of every colour, that frequently it is difficult to discover the tree which supports them, owing to the heaps of verdure under which it is concealed. One very curious creeper, which always catches the eye, is the square-stemmed vine[1], whose fleshy four-sided runners climb the highest trees, and hang down in the most fantastic bunches. Its stem, like that of another plant of the same genus (the _Vitis Indica_), when freshly cut, yields a copious draught of pure tasteless fluid, and is eagerly sought after by elephants.

[Footnote 1: Cissus edulis, _Dalz_.]

But it is the trees of older and loftier growth that exhibit the rank luxuriance of these wonderful epiphytes in the most striking manner.

They are tormented by climbing plants of such extraordinary dimensions that many of them exceed in diameter the girth of a man; and these gigantic appendages are to be seen surmounting the tallest trees of the forest, grasping their stems in firm convolutions, and then flinging their monstrous tendrils over the larger limbs till they reach the top, whence they descend to the ground in huge festoons, and, after including another and another tree in their successive toils, they once more ascend to the summit, and wind the whole into a maze of living network as ma.s.sy as if formed by the cable of a line-of-battle s.h.i.+p. When, by-and-by, the trees on which this singular fabric has become suspended give way under its weight, or sink by their own decay, the fallen trunk speedily disappears, whilst the convolutions of climbers continue to grow on, exhibiting one of the most marvellous and peculiar living mounds of confusion that it is possible to fancy. Frequently one of these creepers may be seen holding by one extremity the summit of a tall tree, and grasping with the other an object at some distance near the earth, between which it is strained as tight and straight as if hauled over a block. In all probability the young tendril had been originally fixed in this position by the wind, and retained in it till it had gained its maturity, where it has the appearance of having been artificially arranged as if to support a falling tree.

This peculiarity of tropical vegetation has been turned to profitable account by the Ceylon woodmen, employed by the European planters in felling forest trees, preparatory to the cultivation of coffee. In this craft they are singularly expert, and far surpa.s.s the Malabar coolies, who a.s.sist in the same operations. In steep and mountainous places where the trees have been thus lashed together by the interlacing climbers, the practice is to cut halfway through each stem in succession, till an area of some acres in extent is prepared for the final overthrow. Then severing some tall group on the eminence, and allowing it in its descent to precipitate itself on those below, the whole expanse is in one moment brought headlong to the ground; the falling timber forcing down those beneath it by its weight, and dragging those behind to which it is harnessed by its living attachments. The crash occasioned by this startling operation is so deafeningly loud, that it is audible for two or three miles in the clear and still atmosphere of the hills.

One monstrous creeping plant called by the Kandyans the Maha-pus-wael, or "Great hollow climber,"[1] has pods, some of which I have seen fully five feet long and six inches broad, with beautiful brown beans, so large that the natives hollow them out, and carry them as tinder-boxes.

[Footnote 1: _Entada pursaetha_. The same plant, when found in lower situations, where it wants the soil and moisture of the mountains, is so altered in appearance that the natives call it the "heen-pus-wael;" and even botanists have taken it for a distinct species. The beautiful mountain region of Pusilawa, now familiar as one of the finest coffee districts in Ceylon, in all probability takes its name from the giant bean, "Pus-waelawa."]

Another climber of less dimensions[1], but greater luxuriance, haunts the jungle, and often reaches the tops of the highest trees, whence it suspends large bunches of its yellow flowers, and eventually produces cl.u.s.ters of p.r.i.c.kly pods containing greyish-coloured seeds, less than an inch in diameter, which are so strongly coated with silex, that they are said to strike fire like a flint.

[Footnote 1: Guilandina Bonduc.]

One other curious climber is remarkable for the vigour and vitality of its vegetation, a faculty in which it equals, if it do not surpa.s.s, the banyan. This is the _Cocculus cordifolius_, the "rasa-kindu" of the Singhalese, a medicinal plant which produces the _guluncha_ of Bengal.

It is largely cultivated in Ceylon, and when it has acquired the diameter of half an inch, it is not unusual for the natives to cut from the main stem a portion of from twenty to thirty feet in length, leaving the dissevered plant suspended from the branches of the tree which sustained it. The amputation naturally serves for a time to check its growth, but presently small rootlets, not thicker than a pack-thread, are seen shooting downwards from the wounded end; these swing in the wind till, reaching the ground, they attach themselves in the soil, and form new stems, which in turn, when sufficiently grown, are cut away and replaced by a subsequent growth. Such is its tenacity of life, that when the Singhalese wish to grow the _rasa-kindu_, they twist several yards of the stem into a coil of six or eight inches in diameter, and simply hang it on the branch of a tree, where it speedily puts forth its large heart-shaped leaves, and sends down its rootlets to the earth.

The ground too has its creepers, and some of them very curious. The most remarkable are the ratans, belonging to the Calamus genus of palms. Of these I have seen a specimen 250 feet long and an inch in diameter, without a single irregularity, and no appearance of foliage other than the bunch of feathery leaves at the extremity.

The strength of these slender plants is so extreme, that the natives employ them with striking success in the formation of bridges across the water-courses and ravines. One which crossed the falls of the Mahawelliganga, in the Kotmahe range of hills, was constructed with the scientific precision of an engineer's work. It was entirely composed of the plant, called by the natives the "Waywel," its extremities fastened to living trees, on the opposite sides of the ravine through which a furious and otherwise impa.s.sable mountain torrent thundered and fell from rock to rock with a descent of nearly 100 feet. The flooring of this aerial bridge consisted of short splints of wood, laid transversely, and bound in their places by thin strips of the waywel itself. The whole structure vibrated and swayed with fearful ease, but the coolies traversed it though heavily laden; and the European, between whose estate and the high road it lay, rode over it daily without dismounting.

Another cla.s.s of trees which excites the astonishment of an European, are those whose stems are protected, as high as cattle can reach, by thorns, which in the jungle attain a growth and size quite surprising.

One species of palm[1], the _Caryota horrida,_ often rises to a height of fifty feet, and has a coating of thorns for about six or eight feet from the ground, each about an inch in length, and so densely covering the stem that the bark is barely visible.

[Footnote 1: This palm I have called a _Caryota_ on the authority of Dr.

GARDNER, and of MOON'S _Catalogue_; but I have been informed by Dr.

HOOKER and Mr. THWAITES that it is an _Areca_. The natives identify it with the Caryota, and call it the "katu-kittul."]

A climbing plant, the "Kudu-miris" of the Singhalese[1], very common in the hill jungles, with a diameter of three or four inches, is thickly studded with k.n.o.bs about half an inch high, and from the extremity of each a thorn protrudes, as large and sharp as the bill of a sparrow-hawk. It has been the custom of the Singhalese from time immemorial, to employ the th.o.r.n.y trees of their forests in the construction of defences against their enemies. The _Mahawanso_ relates, that in the civil wars, in the reign of Prakrama-bahu in the twelfth century, the inhabitants of the southern portion of the island intrenched themselves against his forces behind moats filled with thorns.[2] And at an earlier period, during the contest of Dutugaimunu with Elala, the same authority states, that a town which he was about to attack was "surrounded on all sides by the th.o.r.n.y _Dadambo creeper_ (probably Toddalia aculeata), within which was a triple hue of fortifications, with one gate of difficult access."[3]

[Footnote 1: Toddalia aculeata.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_ ch. lxxiv.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_ ch. xxv.]

During the existence of the Kandyan kingdom as an independent state, before its conquest by the British, the frontier forests were so thickened and defended by dense plantations of these th.o.r.n.y palms and climbers at different points, as to exhibit a natural fortification impregnable to the feeble tribes on the other side, and at each pa.s.s which led to the level country, movable gates, formed of the same formidable th.o.r.n.y beams, were suspended as an ample security against the incursions of the naked and timid lowlanders.[1]

[Footnote 1: The kings of Kandy maintained a regulation "that no one; on pain of death, should presume to cut a road through the forest wider than was sufficient for one person to pa.s.s."--WOLF'S _Life and Adventures_, p. 308.]

The pasture grounds throughout the vicinity of Jaffna abound in a low shrub called the Buffalo-thorn[1], the black twigs of which are beset at every joint by a pair of thorns, set opposite each other like the horns of an ox, as sharp as a needle, from two to three inches in length, and thicker at the base than the stem they grow on.

[Footnote 1: _Acacia latronum._]

The _Acacia tomentosa_ is of the same genus, with thorns so large as to be called the "_jungle-nail_" by Europeans. It is frequent in the woods of Jaffna and Manaar, where it bears the Tamil name of _Aani mulla_, or "elephant thorn." In some of these th.o.r.n.y plants, as in the _Phoberos Goertneri, Thun._,[1] the spines grow not singly, but in branching cl.u.s.ters, each point presenting a spike as sharp as a lancet; and where these formidable shrubs abound they render the forest absolutely impa.s.sable, even to the elephant and to animals of great size and force.

[Footnote 1: Mr. Wm. Ferguson writes to me, "This is the famous _Katu-kurundu_, or 'thoray cinnamon,' of the Singhalese, figured and described by Gaertner as the _Limonia pusilla_, which after a great deal of labour and research I think I have identified as the _Phoberos macrophyllus_" (W. and A. Prod. p. 30). Thunberg alludes to it (_Travels_, vol. iv.)--"Why the Singhalese have called it a cinnamon, I do not know, unless from some fancied similarity in its seeds to those of the cinnamon laurel."]

The family of trees which, from their singularity as well as their beauty, most attract the eye of the traveller in the forests of Ceylon, are the palms, which occur in rich profusion, although, of upwards of six hundred species which are found in other countries, not more than ten or twelve are indigenous to the island.[1] At the head of these is the coco-nut, every particle of whose substance, stem, leaves, and fruit, the Singhalese turn to so many accounts, that one of their favourite topics to a stranger is to enumerate the _hundred_ uses to which they tell us this invaluable tree is applied.[2]

[Footnote 1: Mr. Thwaites has enumerated fifteen species (including the coco-nut, and excluding the _Nipa fruticans_, which more properly belongs to the family of screw-pines): viz. Areca, 4; Caryota, 1; Calamus, 5; Bora.s.sus, 1; Corypha, 1; Phoenix, 2; Cocos, 1.]

[Footnote 2: The following are only a few of the countless uses of this invaluable tree. The _leaves_, for roofing, for mats, for baskets, torches or chules, fuel, brooms, fodder for cattle, manure. The _stem of the leaf_, for fences, for pingoes (or yokes) for carrying burthens on the shoulders, for fis.h.i.+ng-rods, and innumerable domestic utensils. The _cabbage_ or cl.u.s.ter of unexpended leaves, for pickles and preserves.

The _sap_ for _toddy_, for distilling arrack, and for making vinegar, and sugar. The _unformed nut_, for medicine and sweetmeats. The _young nut_ and its milk, for drinking, for dessert; the _green husk_ for preserves. The _nut_, for eating, for curry, for milk, for cooking. The _oil_, for rheumatism, for anointing the hair, for soap, for candles, for light; and the _poonak_, or refuse of the nut after expressing the oil, for cattle and poultry. The _sh.e.l.l of the nut_, for drinking cups, charcoal, tooth-powder, spoons, medicine, hookahs, beads, bottles, and knife-handles. The _coir_, or fibre which envelopes the sh.e.l.l within the outer husk, for mattresses, cus.h.i.+ons, ropes, cables, cordage, canva.s.s, fis.h.i.+ng-nets, fuel, brushes, oak.u.m, and floor mats. The _trunk_, for rafters, laths, railing, boats, troughs, furniture, firewood; and when very young, the first shoots, or cabbage, as a vegetable for the table.

The entire list, with a Singhalese enthusiast, is an interminable narration of the virtues of his favourite tree.]

The most majestic and wonderful of the palm tribe is the _talpat_ or _talipat_[1], the stem of which sometimes attains the height of 100 feet, and each of its enormous fan-like leaves, when laid upon the ground, will form a semicircle of 16 feet in diameter, and cover an area of nearly 200 superficial feet. The tree flowers but once, and dies; and the natives firmly believe that the bursting of the shadix is accompanied by a loud explosion. The leaves alone are converted by the Singhalese to purposes of utility. Of them they form coverings for their houses, and portable tents of a rude but effective character; and on occasions of ceremony, each chief and headman on walking abroad is attended by a follower, who holds above his head an elaborately-ornamented fan, formed from a single leaf of the talpat.

[Footnote 1: Corypha umbraculifera, _Linn._]