THE BURNING TREE OF BURMAH.

Evening Post, Volume LI, Issue 63, 14 March 1896, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE BURNING TREE OF BURMAH.

There has lately been added to the collection of plants at the Botanio Gardens at Madras, India, a specimen of a stran ge tree. It is in size scarcely more than a bush, but others of its species are known to have attained, in their habitat in the Himalayas, Burmah, and the Malacca Peninsula, the dimensions of a large tree, from 50ft to 75ft in height. The Madras specimen is surrounded by a strong railing, which bears the sign :—: — "Dangerous — all persons are forbidden to touch the leaves or branches of this tree." It is, therefore, a forbidden tree in the midst of the garden, but no one is tempted to touch it, for it ia known as a " burning tree." This name is a misnomer, for the tree stings rather than burns. Beneath the leaves are stings, comparable to those of nettles, which when touched pierce the skin and secrete a fluid which certainly has a burning effect. The sting leaves no outward sign, but the sensation of pain persists sometimes for months, and is especially keen on damp days, or when the place which has been wounded is plunged in water. The natives in the parts of Burmah where this tree grows are in such terror of it that they fly in haste when they perceive the peculiar odour which it exhales. If they happen to touch it they fall on the ground and roll over and over on the earth with shrieks. Dogs touched by it yelp and run, biting and tearing the part of their bodies tbat has been touched. A horse which had come in contact with a "burning tree" ran like a mad thing, bitiug everything and everybody that it could reach. A missionary in Mandalay, who investigated a leaf of the plant with his forefinger, Buffered agony for several weeks, and for ten months felt occasional darting pains in his finger. A sooiety is md to havo boon formed somewhere out in lowa for the purpose of inducing the United States to acoept the pansy as a national flower, arranging tho stars on tho national flag inside the outline of a pansy, and putting puney buttons on their soldiers, « Kansas is • Prohibition State, whioh makes it odd that a noted temperance lecturer should be about to start on an aggressive tour of tho State, under the dtroction of the Kansas State Temperance Association.