CURIOUS TREES.

USEFUL trees have their place, and so have ornamental trees. But in addition to these there is a class which may be called distinctively curious; and of these a few notes may be interesting.

The cow-tree is a native of Venezuela, South America. It is often found growing on the poorest and most rocky soil. Its leaves are dry and leathery in appearance, and for several months of the year not a shower falls to moisten its roots and branches. Yet, by piercing the bark, it yields a liquid resembling milk, which is sweet and nourishing, free from acidity, and, after being taken from the tree, becomes yellow and thickens at the surface. At sunrise this fluid seems to be especially abundant, and at this hour the natives go to the trees in great numbers, to get their daily supply.

The sorrowful tree is found near Bombay, India. It is so called from its habit of blooming only at night. While the sun is shining not an expanded flower is visible, yet in half an hour after the sun is below the horizon the tree is full of them. There is little beauty in them, though the odour is pleasant. At sunrise the petals close up or drop to the ground.

The mammoth trees of California are worthy of note. They They are found three hundred feet high and twenty-nine feet in diameter at five feet from the ground. The bark of some of the larger trees is

twelve to fourteen inches thick. A hollow section of a trunk was lately exhibited at San Francisco which presented a large carpeted room, with a piano and seats for forty persons. On a recent occasion one hundred and forty children were admitted without inconvenience. Notwithstanding its enormous size, it is a very elegant and beautiful

tree.

The ivory-nut tree is found in South America, and belongs to the palm tribe. The natives use it in building their huts; and out of its nuts a milky liquid is taken, which thickens into a creamy substance, afterwards to the consistence of butter, and ultimately to a hard ivory-looking material. This solid production is used for the manufacture of buttons and various trinkets. Of late years the nuts have found their way to other countries, where they are worked up into all sorts of fancy articles.

The cannon-ball tree. This tree grows only in the tropics. It rises about sixty-five feet high, has beautiful crimson flowers, in clusters, which are very fragrant. The resemblance of the fruit to cannonballs has given it its martial name. When fully ripe the balls burst with a loud report. The shells are worked into cups, dishes, and bowls, and a great variety of other useful and ornamental household utensils.

The bread-fruit tree. Here is something useful as well as curious. The fruit attains the size of a child's head ten years old. If wanted for food, it

needs to be gathered a little before it is fully ripe, and then baked, like hoe-cake, in hot ashes. When properly cooked, it resembles not a little the taste of a good wheaten loaf. Nor is this the only use of the tree. Its timber is excellent for housebuilding, for making canoes and agricultural implements. The sap is a gummy substance, very

useful as a pitch for caulking the seams of vessels. The fibre of the inner bark is used by the natives for making cloth, which, in that climate, answers a good purpose. It is the favourite tree of its native region; and it may well be.

The upas tree. "The deadly upas," of which we have all read and heard from childhood, which was supposed to diffuse a poisonous air, fatal to

animals or men who came beneath its branches, has no existence, and never had. The only possible ground for the superstition was this: on a certain island of the East Indies there is a valley in which there is a constant deposition of carbonic acid gas. This gas spreads itself among a few trees of the neighbourhood; and of course, if birds, animals, or men inhale much of this gas, it will surely be fatal to them. But this is no fault of the trees, which have been found to possess no poisonous qualities.

The tallow tree has a veritable existence. It lives in China, and yields an oily substance resembling tallow, which answers well as a substitute for it. This vegetable tallow is contained in a large berry, covered with a husk like a chestnut. The tree is of only medium size at maturity. It resembles a small pear-tree in shape, having, when young, shiny purplish leaves and brilliant, as well as fragrant, red blossoms. It would not endure the climate of England.

It

The varnish tree is Japanese, though found also in a wild state in Sumatra, and sparingly in China. This is the tree which produces the black Japan varnish, so useful an article of commerce. resembles, in general appearance, the white ashtree of this country, except that the leaves are shaped like those of the laurel, and have white down on them. It does not furnish its peculiar liquid in large quantities until nine or ten years old. and then only in the night. The liquid is

white, looks like cream when it is drawn from the incisions made in the trees by the natives, hardens to the consistency of resin, and becomes black on exposure to the air.

Caulk'-ing, stopping or filling up the In-ci'-sions, cuts.

1. Live as long as you may, the first twenty years form the greater part of your life. They appear so when they are passing; they seem to have been so when we look back to them; and they take up more room in our memory than all the years which succeed them.

2. Our six weeks' holiday among the woods and green fields had taught us how little we really knew, and how much there was to learn, about the living creatures that haunt the fields and woods; that of all books, next to the Bible itself, the Book of Nature is by far the grandest, fairest, and wisest; that every page in it is full of beauty, joy, and truth-truth so simple and so clear that the child may read it, and wisdom so deep and noble and lofty that the wisest man cannot learn it all.