106 THE WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 



as an assembly hall, where the affairs of the tribe are 

 discussed. This hall recalls the "cavern" (specns) 

 formed in the hollows of a palm-tree in Lycia, in which a 

 consular personage, Licinius Mucianus, used to enter- 

 tain nineteen friends at dinner. Pliny describes anoth- 

 er cavity of the same kind as being eighty Roman feet 

 in width. 



The calculations of Adanson and of Perrottet, 

 from which it would appear that there are baobabs in 

 the world from 5,000 to 6,000 years old, would make 

 these plants the contemporaries of the builders of the 

 pyramids, or even of earlier mythical personages. 



These immense trunks are crowned with a vast 

 number of large, almost horizontal branches, and on 

 this account they appear, when seen from a distance, 

 like gigantic parasols ; as the lower branches nearly 

 reach down to the ground, they give to the whole form 

 of the tree the appearance of a perfect hemisphere 100 

 feet in height and 250 feet in circumference. 



The great dryness and intense heat of the tropical 

 climate produce upon these trees the same effect 

 which cold has upon northern plants ; they lose their 

 leaves, and only resume their foliage during the rainy 

 season, which lasts from December to June. 



Besides the uses which the negroes of Senegambia 

 make of the fruit of the baobab, they are also careful 

 to dry the leaves, which appear at this season, and to 

 reduce them to powder, to which, as has been stated, 

 they ascribe medicinal properties. It cures dysentery 

 2 nd the inflammatory fevers to which Europeans liv- 

 >ng in Senegal are frequently exposed. 



