Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society/Volume 22/On the so-called Tiger's Milk, Susu Rimau of the Malays
ON THE SO-CALLED TIGER'S MILK "SUSU RIMAU" OF THE MALAYS.
BY H. N. RIDLEY, M.A., F.L.S.
While staying recently at Pekan I procured, through the kindness of Mr. RODGER, a fine specimen of the remarkable vegetable production, known to the Malays here as "Susu Rimau." The tradition is that it is the congealed milk of the tiger, and it is stated to produce eventually a climbing plant. It is considered a valuable medicine for asthma and other chest complaints, and is sold in the bazaars at a high price. The specimen given me by Mr. RODGER was considered a very large one, being about four inches cube, but a later one was brought in from the forests at Bukit Mandai in Singapore which is even larger, being six inches in length and three inches through in the thickest part. Professor VAUGHAN STEPHENS gave me also a smaller specimen from the interior of Pahang.
The structure and appearance of all seem very much the same. Each consists of an irregular white mass lobed and cracked all over, covered with a thin rind, terra-cotta red in the fresh specimen, browner when older. When fresh the interior is of the consistency of cheese, white, scentless, and with a faint funguslike taste. When dryer, and in old specimens it becames chalky and vimer.
Under the microscope a section shows it to be a very compact mass of fungus threads (mycelium) with which are mixed innumerable globose cells. In the fresh specimen from Bukit Mandai the mycelium is very scanty, and in all it is very much less in quantity than the white globose cells. Through the mass runs a fine whiter network visible with the naked eye, which consists of chains of cells with more granular opaque contents. The red rind consists of a very fine granular layer, in which I cannot perceive any cell structure.
It is very certain from this that it is no animal structure, and that it is very improbable that the climbing plant supposed to be produced by it has anything to do with it, but that it is of the nature of a fungus. The Malays say that it is found under ground, but the specimen obtained at Bukit Mandai, was growing upon a rotten tree, and to it was attached a fungus of the genus Polyporus, species of which are so abundant on rotten timber in the jungles.
Some similar bodies are known from several parts of the world, and have been described, but at present their origin is very obscure, and I think it will be well to compare the known kinds with our Tiger's Milk, and see wherein it differs.
RUMPHIUS described and figured a fungus which he called Tuber Regium, in the Herbarium Amboinense (Vol. VI Plate LVII 4, p. 120). The picture represents a body like a smooth block of earth on which a number of fungi evidently belonging to the genus Lentinus are growing. RUMPHIUS gives a long account of the "Royal Tuber." He says it is very common in April and October when the rainy season is on, and that then it is quite soft and not durable, and although his picture represents it as quite smooth, he says that when suddenly dried, it becomes cracked and fissured; when he planted it in his garden and watered it with warm water it produced the fungi, but perished next year. The Lentinus is eatable, but hardly worth eating. The tuber he recommends for diarrhea grated and mixed with rice and also mixed with oil as an ointment for sore mouths. Eaten raw he says it is insipid and earthy. He gives the following names for it, none of which occur in FILET'S Javanese Dictionary:—Malay, Ubi Raja, and Culat Batu, Amboinese Mathata Utta batu and Uttah putih. In Hitoc it is called Tabalale (without heart), and in Uliassens, Urupickal. In Java Djanjor bongkang (dung of the Python); in Ternate Cabamaisse (earth-tuber). It was common in Oma, Leytimor, Gorama and Ternate under grass on the mountains and at the roots of tall trees. He compares it with the Chinese plant now called Fuhling (Pachyma Cocos). This is a well known Chinese drug of a very similar nature to our Tiger's Milk, and which is probably also the same as the Tuckahoe or Indian Bread of North America. I obtained a specimen of the Chinese Fuhling in the Singapore market. It is sold in the drug shops, and appears to have some repu- tation as a medecine. The plant differs somewhat from the Susu Rimau, and I should imagine is a different species. It is more regular in shape, resembling a large truffle externally with a cracked brown skin darker coloured than that of the Tiger's Milk. The interior is a little more mealy in texture, but perhaps this is due to the age of the specimen, and the rind is thicker. In section the microscope shows that there are the fungus threads as in the Susu Rimau, but that the glo- bose cells are represented in great measure by amorphous granular masses. The white substance of Pachyma is stated by Professor BERKELEY to consist of masses of pectine traversed by mycelium threads, and the whole thing to be of the nature of a sclerotium, that is to say, a fungus in a resting state. Mr. G. MURRAY, in a paper read before the Linnean Society in 1886, described a sclerotium upon which a Lentinus was growing somewhat as in RUMPHIUS' picture which was brought from Samoa in the Fiji Islands by Mr. WHITMER. This he thought at first might be identical with the Pachyma. Microscopic examination, however, showed no pectine in the Samoan plant, which consisted merely of a mass of fungus threads, and in fact was a typical Sclerotium.
Our plant is, however, somewhat more than this, as the proportion of fungus threads to the white globose cells is so very small. It is evidently more closely allied to Pachyma, but I think is quite distinct from that specifically and may indeed be RUMPHIUS' long-lost Tuber Regium.
The Bukit Mandai mass was partially encrusting a piece of rotten timber, and from it apparently grew a stalked Polyporus of large size. I thought at first that I had got hold of the fungus that produced the Susu Rimau, and was much surprised to find it was a Polyporus, and not a Lentinus, but a section showed that the mycelium of the Polyporus was growing partly on the wood and partly over the Tiger's Milk and there was not only no mingling of the two bodies, but their microscopic structure was totally different. In that of the Polyporus there were no round globose cells, but a mere mass of mycelium threads as in an ordinary Sclerotium, so that the growth of the Polyporus upon the Susu Rimau is a mere accident, and we have again to seek for the fungus which produces this Tiger's Milk.
The plant is evidently not a very rare one and is well known to the Malays, so that if some of those whose business leads them into the jungles of the Peninsula will make enquiries about it, we may hope ere long to obtain the fungus it pro- duces and settle definitely its name and life history.