Cow Tree (brosimum galactodendron; Sp. palo de vaca), an evergreen of the natural order urticacecs, indigenous in the Cordilleras of Caracas, having oblong, pointed, coriaceous, and alternate leaves about 10 inches long, and especially distinguished by its sap, which almost exactly resembles milk, and flows copiously from incisions made in the bark. Of this sap Alexander von Humboldt, who first brought the tree to the notice of foreigners, writes: "We were assured that the negroes on the farm, who are in the habit of drinking large quantities of this vegetable milk, consider it as highly nutritive; an assertion which startled us the more, as almost all lactescent vegetable fluids are acrid, bitter, and more or less poisonous. Experience, however, proved to us, during our residence at Barbula, that the virtues of the cow tree, or palo de vaca, have not been exaggerated".

Cow Tree - Leaves and Fruit.