438 



three of these flowers on a branch, each being suspended by a pedun- 

 cle which springs from the axil of one of the lower leaves, and bears 

 a few scattered deciduous scales or bracts. The peduncle is a foot 

 long and four lines thick. The handsome white flowers, like those of 

 many allied plants, expand in the morning, about sun-rise, and close 

 towards evening, thus aflbrding an example of what Linnaeus terms 

 the sleep of plants. Golberry observes that the negroes assemble 

 round the Baobabs to watch the expansion of their flowers ; and that 

 each flower, as it opens, is saluted with — " Good morning, beautiful 

 lady ! " An expanded flower is shown at b. 



Omitting Adanson's minute description of the calyx and other parts 

 of the flower, I will pass on to the fruit (p. 437), which is fromtwelve 

 to eighteen inches long and six inches in diameter, and is suspended 

 by a peduncle two feet long and nearly an inch thick. It is very hard 

 and woody, and is covered with a greenish down. When cut across 

 the fruit is found to be divided into from ten to fourteen cells by 

 membranous dissepiments. The seeds are embedded in a spongy 

 substance, which is whitish in fresh and healthy fruits, and of a red- 

 dish hue in those which are badly formed or very old ; as it dries it 

 becomes friable, and separates, either spontaneously or on receiving 

 a very slight blow, into a number of irregular polyhedrons, each of 

 which contains a single seed. 



Adanson describes the structure of the seed and its mode of germi- 

 nation, four different stages of which are figured. The cotyledons 

 are at first orbicular, then elliptical ; on the fourth day the first true 

 leaf is developed ; at the end of a month the young tree is about a 

 foot high, and at that time, as before stated, the digitated leaves ap- 

 pear ; during the first summer the tree increases to about five feet in 

 height, and is then about an inch or an inch and a half thick, whilst 

 in France, under the most careful treatment, the author observes that 

 within the latter period it attains no greater height than about twelve 

 inches. A specimen in the botanic garden at Calcutta is said to have 

 attained a circumference of eighteen feet in twenty-six years. 



The Baobab comes into leaf in June, flowers in July, matures its 

 fruit in October and November, and in the latter month it loses its 

 leaves. It is very common both in the Island of Senegal and at the 

 Cape de Verd, and along the sea-coast to Sierra Leone, and is even 

 met with at Galam, which is more than a hundred leagues from the 

 sea. M. Golberry says that in the year 1786 he "saw the greatest 

 number of Baobabs on the isthmus of the peninsula of Cape de Verd, 

 between the bay of Jof and that of Dakar," a space of nearly two 



