It belongs to the rare phytolacca family, and has an immense girth-forty or fifty feet in some cases; at the same time the wood is so soft and spongy that it can be cut into with a knife, and is utterly unfit for firewood, for when cut up it refuses to dry, but simply rots away like a ripe water-melon.
"Far Away and Long Ago"
W. H. Hudson