Show THE DEADLY UPAS TREE We all remember how In our younger days we read of the deadly upas tree that the man who allowed himself to sleep under Its seductive shade awoke in the morning n dead corpse to use a Biblical phrase Afterwards and for continuous years the very existence of this upas tree was denied Science pronounced pro-nounced tho Idea of there being such a tree absurd I wns pronounced lo be one of those popular myths that gained currency and acceptance no one knew Just how but anyway It couldnt be true Yet the existence of that tree is now nfilrmeJ by C L McCluer Stevens in Clmmherss Journal lie says the tree grows In the Interior of Sumatra among the pathless forests of that great Island M Becarl the French explorer found It The natives kept asserting Its existence and the scientists continued I to scout the idea l f Becarl says the natives informed him that the tree resembled re-sembled II gigantic lily and so he found It spadis over six feet In height spiked loaves from ten to twelve feet long and the entire evilsmelling growth covered an area of over sixty square feel M Becari was rendered violently sick by i 0 mere cursory examination exami-nation of the plant and its surroundings A goat and a dog tethered ut night in Its Immediate vicinity were found dead and cold In the morning The noxious fumes were found to be strongest strong-est at sunset and for an hour before sunrise Inspection showed that in the dopths oc KB bellshaped flowers the decaying bodies of bats small birds and many Insects were lodged It is thus found to be one of the carnivorous plants of which quite a number are known and the presence of the decaying animal fiber is sutllcicnt to account for the loathsome odor though perhaps not for its deadly quality Another enrnivoroup plant Is reported from the shores of Lake Nicaragua Nic-aragua where Mr Dunstan an English En-glish explorer was altraded by the howls of hia dog io a plant which held the animal by three black sticky band which had chafed the skin to bleeding Those hands were the branches oC a newlyfound plant whloh ho named the land octopus the natives cal It the devils noose The existence of carnivorous plants has long been known and indeed a good many plants thrive in Increased luxuriance 1 lux-uriance with the addition of flesh to their sustenance but the verification ol the old stories about he upas will coma like 1 boon to a skeptical world which has eliminated the Columbus William Tell and milny other stories from the boliuvabies of its modern creeds |