The planter of the Cape strews over pieces of flesh the pounded fruit of a plant that grows there (Hyænanche globosa), and lays them as an infallible poison for the hyena. The wild inhabitants of southern Africa, according to Bruce, poison their arrows with a spurge (Euphorbia caput Medusæ). Virey states that the Ethiopians make a similar application of others (Euphorbia heptagona, Euphorbia virosa, Euphorbia cereiformis), while the savages of the most southern part of America use the sap of a third (Euphorbia cotinifolia). Nay, even our seemingly so innocent box, which also belongs to this family, is so injurious that in places in Persia, where it much abounds, no camels can be kept, because it is impossible to prevent their feeding on this plant, which is deadly to them. I can not take leave of this family without mentioning a remarkable phenomenon, reported to us by Martius, in that work so full of information, his _Travels Through Brazil_. A spurge grows there (Euphorbia phosphorea), the milk of which, when it flows forth from the stem in the dark, hot summer nights, emits a bright phosphoric light. While the family just alluded to, the blossoms being generally insignificant, attract the attention of our horticulturists almost solely through their strange forms, which, in some of them, approach to those of the cactus plants, the family of the Apocynaceæ is, on the contrary, a rich ornament of our gardens and hothouses, on account of the wonderful beauty of its blossoms, and is often still more attractive from the remarkable structure of the flowers, and the aberrant, also cactus-like form of the plant itself. What lover of flowers knows not the splendid blossom of the species of Carissa, Allamanda, Thevetia, Cerbera, Plumieria, Vinca, Nervium, and Gelsemium; the strange stalk and toad-colored, ill-smelling flowers of the Stapelia? But this family is not less interesting in other respects. The best caoutchouc at present known, that from Pulo Penang, comes from a plant of this family (Cynanchum ovalifolium). Also that from Sumatra (Urceola elastica), from Madagascar (Vahea gummifera), a part of the Brazilian Collophora utilis and Hancornia speciosa, and the East Indian Willughbeia edulis are obtained from plants which belong to the group of Apocynaceæ.