upas tree

An evergreen tree (Antiaris toxicaria) native to Malaysia; leaves oblong; flowers tiny, green, in globose heads. The milky latex is used to make a powerful arrow-poison. In the 18th-c, misunderstanding led to the belief that poisonous emanations from the tree killed all life for miles around. (Family: Moraceae.)

iAntiaris toxicaria
Antiaris toxicaria
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae Division: Magnoliophyta Class: Magnoliopsida Order: Rosales Family: Moraceae Genus: Antiaris Species: A. toxicaria
Binomial name
Antiaris toxicaria Lesch.

Antiaris toxicaria (Upas or Ipoh) is an evergreen tree in the family Moraceae, native to southeastern Asia, from India and Sri Lanka east to southern China, the Philippines and Fiji;

Byron, in the fourth canto of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, uses the upas to describe the hereditary depravity of original sin:

Our life is a false nature – 'tis not in The harmony of things, – this hard decree, This uneradicable taint of sin, This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree, Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be The skies which rain their plagues on men like dew – Disease, death, bondage – all the woes we see – And worse, the woes we see not – which throb thought The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new.