62 DICTIONARY OF POPULAR XAMES BREAD 



It is of a white and firm texture, sorQething like wlieaten bread, 

 and not unpleasant to eat. The bark is very tough, and when 

 beaten out forms the whitest and finest native cloth. 



The Bread-fruit tree was first brought into notice through 

 the voyages of Captain Cook, and its fame as a food-plant led 

 the British Government to deem it worthy of being naturalised 

 in the West Indies. Accordingly, in 1787 the ship Bounty, 

 commanded by Captain Bligh, accompanied by David Nelson, a 

 gardener (who had accompanied Captain Cook in his third 

 voyage), was despatched to Otaheite to obtain a cargo of young 

 trees. This being accomplished, the ship sailed from Otaheite 

 with every prospect of the undertaking terminating successfully; 

 but they had not long left Otaheite when a mutiny broke out 

 on board, and the captain, Nelson, and other officers, and 

 members of the crew who would not join the mutineers, were 

 put in an open boat and set adrift in mid-ocean, the nearest 

 place where European aid could be obtained being the Island of 

 Timor, 3618 miles distant, which place they reached after 

 enduring great fatigue and hardship, from the effects of which 

 Nelson did not recover, having died there in July 1789. On 

 Captain Bligh reaching England he was again despatched on 

 the same mission in the ship Providence, having with him 

 Christopher Smith, a gardener from Kew, the expedition this 

 time proving successful ; and in 1793 Bread-fruit trees were flour- 

 ishing in Jamaica and other West Indian Islands, and soon became 

 common in all tropical countries favourable to their growth. 



Bread-fruit, African {Trecidia africana), a tree of the Bread- 

 fruit family (Artocarpacete), native of Western tropical Africa. 

 The fruit is about a foot in diameter, having numerous nuts 

 buried in a spongy substance ; these nuts are ground into meal 

 and eaten by the natives. 



Bread-nut Tree (Brosimicm alicastruni), a large tree of the 

 Bread-fruit family (Artocarpacese), native of the West Indies. It 

 has lance-shaped leaves and fruit about the size of a plum, 

 containing one nut-seed, which when roasted is eatable. The 

 wood has a fine grain like mahogany. 



