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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
"'When you
first came upon me, sir, in the Lodge, this day, more as if a Upas
tree had been made a capture of than a private defendant, such
mingled streams of feelings broke loose again within me, that
everything was for the first few minutes swept away before them,
and I was going round and round in a vortex. I got out of it. I
struggled, and got out of it.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the upas-tree is "a fabulous tree alleged to have existed in Java . . .with properties so poisonous as to destroy all animal and vegetable life to a distance of fifteen or sixteen miles around it."
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
The upas tree is a real tree, but not as poisonous as the legend would have us believe. The Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia entry for upas says: upas n. 1. vegetable poison 2. a poisonous tree:Antiaris Toxicaria Apparently its sap was (and for all I know may still be) used for poison darts. See http://bpi.da.gov.ph/websitemedicinal/all/i/ipo.htm
Bingley
Bingley
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