40 



that purpose. In general the tree was much too valuable as a 

 fruit-tree to be utilized for timber, and breadfruit wood is used 

 chiefly in those regions that have an abundance of the wild, 

 seed-producing variety. According to Safford, "In Samoa the 

 framework of the roofs of all the best houses is made of the 

 curved limbs of the breadfruit, beautifully rounded and scarped 

 together and wrapped at the joints with cocoanut sennit." 

 Several other species of Artocarpus, notably A. hirsuta and A. 

 chapalasha of India, yield valuable mahogany-like cabinet woods, 

 but these species do not occur in the Hawaiian Islands. 



The breadfruit tree is highly laticiferous.* The milk is used 

 by the Hawaiians, and by the natives of other regions, for glue, 

 calking, and bird-lime. In Samoa it is chewed by the children, 

 like gum. Safford states that 



"Besides using the latex in calking boats, the natives of Guam 

 find it, when fresh and viscid, an excellent medium for mixing 

 paint, and it is a good sizing for whitewash. The usual pigments 

 were a red ferruginous earth and lampblack made by burning 

 cocoanut shells. The Caroline Islanders still use it with various 

 pigments for painting their canoes, and it resists the action of 

 water pretty well, though for this purpose it is inferior to oil."t 



According to BaumJ "The breadfruit trees throughout Porto 

 Rico are scarred with machete marks made by the natives for the 

 purpose of obtaining milk which they boil with coconut oil to 

 obtain the thick, gummy substance used in caulking canoes and 

 rendering bottles watertight." The breadfruit latex will prob- 

 ably never assume commercial importance, nor compete with 

 the rubbers now on the markets, unless the methods of extraction 

 and treatment for its gums are greatly improved. § 



The leaf-buds and the floral buds of the breadfruit are large 

 and showy, the latter more so than the former. The 3'-oung 

 leaves are conduplicate. The mature leaves are one to three 



* See G. Fendler and H. Thorns, Bericht uber die Untersuchung der Milksafte 

 von Artocarpus incisa, Notizbl. bot. Garten, Berlin, Vol. 4, pp. 285-86, 1907; 

 also G. Fendler, same title, Arb. pharm. Inst., Vol. 5, pp. 280—81, 1908. 



t W. E. Safford, Useful Plants of Guam, U. S. Nat. Herb., Vol. 9, 1905, p. 190. 



t H. E. Baum, The Breadfruit, The Plant World, Vol. 6, pp. 197, 225, and 273. 



§ Biffin, in Kew Bulletin, 140: 177-181. Aug., 1898. 



