THE JUJUBR 



371 



Bweet, and very grateful to the taste. The 

 Cliinese prefer the longan, to which they ascribe 

 medicinal qualities ; hut Europeans give the pre- 

 ference to the litchi, probably on account of its 

 larger size, and the greater beauty of its colour. 

 The litchi is often brought to this country in a 

 dried state, in which, though the pulp be much 

 diminislied in size, it retains a very considerable 

 portion of its original flavour. From the beauty 

 and flavour of these fruits, and the perfection to 

 which they have been brought in this country, 

 in all cases where they have had a fair trial, it is 

 by no means unlikely that they may become 

 common as hot-house fruit. 



The Jujube ( zizx/phus jujiiha) belongs to the 

 very numerous genus of the buckthorns (rham- 

 iiij. It is found in the south of Europe ; but 

 no where is it brought to so much perfection as 

 in China, where there are upwards of sixty kinds, 

 all of them highly esteemed. In the opinion of 

 Mr Lindley (Trans. Ilor. Soc. v. 123), the Chi- 

 nese jujube might be fruited in greenhouses in 

 England, with a very moderate degree of artifi- 

 cial heat. 



The Kaki, or Chinese Date-Plum (diospyrus 

 l<iMJ, is a tree of a middle size, bearing a fruit 

 about the size of an apple, of a reddish orange 

 colour, and with a very luscious, brownish, semi- 

 transparent pulp. The fruit of one species is 

 dried with sugar, like figs. 



The Bread-Fruit (artocarpus incisa). This 

 celebrated tree belongs to tlie natural family 



140, 



Bread Fruit, 



urticece, and to the class and order monoscia mon- 

 andria of Linna;us, The bread-fruit, originally 

 found in the south-eastern parts of Asia and the 

 islands of the Pacific, though now introduced 

 into the tropical parts of the western continent 

 and the West India islands, is one of the most 

 interesting as well as sisgular productions of the 

 vegetable kingdom. There are two species of it : 

 the bread-fruit, properly so called (artocarpus 

 incisa, fig. a), with the leaves deeply gashed or 

 divided at the sides, which grows chiefly in the 

 islands ; and the Jack fruit, or Jaca tree (arto- 

 carpus irUegrifolia, fig. b), with the leaves en- 

 tire, which grows chiefly on the main land of 

 Asia, 



The bread-fruit is a beautiful as well as a use- 

 ful tree. The trunk rises to the height of about 

 forty feet, and, in a full grown tree, is from a 

 foot to fifteen inches in diameter; the hark is 

 ash-colourcd, full of little chinks, and covered 

 by small knobs ; the inner bark is fibrous, and 

 used in the manufacture of a sort of cloth ; and 

 the wood is smooth, soft, and of a yellow colour. 

 The branches come out in a horizontal manner, 

 the lowest ones about ten or twelve feet from 

 the ground, and they become shorter and shorter 

 as they are nearer the top. The leaves are di- 

 vided into seven or nine lobes, about eighteen 

 inches or two feet long, and are of a lively green. 

 The tree bears male and female flowers, the males 

 among the upper leaves, and the females at the 

 extremities of the twigs. When full grown, the 

 fruit is about nine inches long, heart-shaped, of 

 a greenish colour, and marked with hexagonal 

 warts, formed into facets. The pulp is white, 

 partly farinaceous and partly fibroils ; but when 

 quite ripe, it becomes yellow and juicy. The 

 whole tree, when in a green state, abounds with 

 a viscid milky juice, of so tenacious a nature as 

 to be drawn out in threads. 



The Jaca (artocarpus integrifoUa). The 

 Jaca, or Jach, grows to the same, or even to a 

 larger size, than the bread-fruit of the Society 

 islands ; but it is neither so palatable nor so nu- 

 tritious. Though its specific name implies that 

 it is entire-leaved, the leaves of it are sometimes 

 found lobed like those of the other. The fruit 

 often weighs more than thirty pounds, and con- 

 tains two hundred or three hundred seeds, each 

 of them four times as large as an almond. De- 

 cember is the time when the fruit ripens ; it is 

 then eaten, though not much relished ; and the 

 seeds or nuts also are eaten, after being roasted. 

 There are many varieties of the jaca tree, some 

 of which can hardly be distinguished from the 

 seedling variety of the true bread-fruit. The 

 fruit, and also the part of the tree on which it is 

 produced, varies with the age. When the tree 

 is young, the fruit grows from the twigs ; in 

 middle age it grows from the trunk ; and when 

 the tree gets old, it grows from the roots. The 

 sort called the champadah is more esteemed than 

 the common Jach or Nangha. 



In the island of Otaheite and other places, 

 where the bread-fruit fomis the chief support of 

 the people, there are, as is the case with culti- 

 vated vegetables in all countries, many varieties; 

 only two, however, are very difl'erent from each 

 other — that which contains seeds in the fruit, and 

 that which contains none. The variety with 

 seeds is much inferior to the other, being more 

 fibrous, containing less farina, and not so plea- 

 sant to the taste; it is, therefore, not cultivated, 

 though, in cases of need, it is roasted and eaten. 

 Whether the seedless sort has been produced 

 wholly by cultivation it is not easy, and would 



