VEGETABLE VAGARIES. 267 



the most extravagantly droll. The half a dozen or so individual examples repro- 

 duced in the Plate overleaf, Plate XLVL, represents but a few selections from 

 upwards of fifty photographs of this tree taken by the writer in the neighbourhoods 

 of Derby and Wyndham in Western Australia, and every one of these possesses a 

 most distinctly marked individuality. With many of them the resemblance of their 

 trunks to smooth, symmetrically-shaped radishes or rough-rinded mangold-wurzels of 

 Brobdingnagian proportions, is ludicrous. The contour of such an one as is portrayed 

 by No. 3 in the above-quoted Plate is particularly suggestive of the first-named salad 

 adjunct, while in No. 5 the two types indicated are growing in close proximity. One 

 feels sorely tempted at Derby, Western Australia, when Christmastide comes round, 

 to sally forth with a huge pot of crimson or vermilion paint, and to add that thin 

 veneer of colour that is alone wanting to transform these bizarre trunks into 

 " property " vegetables that would be the envy and admiration of the chief pantomime 

 artist at Drury Lane. 



In some instances, as illustrated by No. 1 of the series in Plate XL VI., the main 

 trunk is almost spherical in shape, and with its crown of bare radiating branches 

 bears a by no means inconsiderable resemblance to a colossal octopus. In the back- 

 ground of this picture other trees of the same description may be noted, and also a 

 large termite mound of the Kimberley type, closely corresponding in shape and 

 dimensions with the examples figured in Plate XVI. It often happens that double 

 or twin trunks are produced by the Baobab tree. Three such instances are yielded 

 in the Plate illustrative of this type, and a fourth on page 269. In fig. 2 of the Plate 

 quoted the growth plan has varied to the extent of forming a three-shafted column. 

 In its extreme youth, the Baobab presents little or nothing to distinguish it from the 

 ordinary run of trees. A very juvenile sapling is included in the foreground, and a 

 little to the right of the central figure in No. 3. of Plate XLVL It in all ways 

 resembles a small detached branchlet from an adult tree. 



As is clearly indicated by the many specimens here figured, the Baobab is 

 essentially deciduous in its habits, the majority of the examples portrayed representing 

 the trees in the dry or winter season, when they are for the most part completely 

 divested of foliage and show the singularities of their form to the greatest advantage. 

 There is even, however, in this matter of leaf-shedding, as with the formula of growth, 

 a marked individuality among the trees, and a reluctance to conform to any hard and 

 fast rule of periodicity. There are some trees to be found in full foliage at any 

 season of the year. Fig. 4. in Plate XLVL represents a by no means unusual example 



