VEGETABLE VAGARIES. 267 
the most extravagantly droll. The half a dozen or so individual examples repro- 
duced in the Plate overleaf, Plate XLVI., 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 XLVLI., 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 XLVI. 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 XLVI. represents a by no means unusual example 
