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Antiqua
Antiqua; Fußnoten mit Asterisken.
M. Humboldt and his companions, in the course of their travels,
heard an account of a tree which grows in the valleys of Aragua,
the juice of which is a nourishing milk, and which, from that cir-
cumstance, has received the name of the cow-tree. As the milky
juices of plants are in general acrid, bitter, and even poisonous,
M. Humboldt was at first scarcely disposed to credit the account;
but experience proved it to be correct.
The tree, in its general aspect, resembles the chrysophyllum
cainito: its leaves are oblong, pointed, leathery, and alternate,
marked with lateral veins, projecting downwards; they are pa-
rallel, and are ten inches long. M. Humboldt had no opportunity
of seeing the flower; the fruit is somewhat fleshy, and contains
one, or sometimes two, nuts. When incisions are made into the
trunk, it discharges abundantly a glutinous milk, moderately thick,
without any acridness, and exhaling an agreeable balsamic odour.
The travellers drank considerable quantities of it without expe-
riencing any injurious effects; its viscidity only rendering it rather
unpleasant. The superintendent of the plantation assured them
that the negroes acquire flesh during the season in which the cow-
tree yields the greatest quantity of milk.
When this fluid is exposed to the air, perhaps in consequence
of the absorption of the oxygen of the atmosphere, its surface be-
comes covered with membranes of a substance that appears to be
of a decided animal nature, yellowish, thready, and of a cheesy
consistence. These membranes, when separated from the more
aqueous part of the fluid, are almost as elastic as caoutchouc; but,
at the same time, they are as much disposed to become putrid as
gelatine. The natives give the name of cheese to the coagulum,
which is separated by the contact of the air; in the course of five
or six days it becomes sour. The milk, kept for some time in a
corked phial, had deposited a little coagulum, and still exhaled its
balsamic odour. If the recent juice be mixed with cold water,
the coagulum is formed in small quantity only; but the separation
of the viscid membranes occurs when it is placed in contact with
nitric acid.
This remarkable tree seems to be peculiar to the Cordilliere du
Littoral, especially from Barbula to the lake of Maracaybo. There
are likewise some traces of it near the village of San Mateo;
and, according to the account of M. Bredmeyer, in the village of
Caucagua, three days’ journey to the east of the Caraccas. This
naturalist has likewise described the vegetable milk of the cow-tree
as possessing an agreeable flavour and an aromatic odour: the na-
tives of Caucagua call it the milk tree.