174 NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



leaves are employed in this country for feeding small cattle, but 

 they are said to be injurious and aging. The seeds are edible, as 

 are likewise those of the Cow tree, but they are roasted before 

 being used. Those of Musanga Smithii,^ a fine African tree, and of 

 many species of Artocarpus^ are equally edible. A. integrifolia^ 

 (fig. 115-118), in the wild state, has no other part useful. But 

 culture has modified this species and still more A. incisa^ (fig. 114), 

 which is the Bread tree proper of Asia and tropical Oceania, in 

 greatly reducing the volume of the fruit (with the seed they enclose), 

 or even in making them entirely disappear, while the receptacle 

 has assumed as much greater a development and is filled with a 

 larger quantity of fecula. They are cut in slices and eaten fresh, 

 boiled, roasted or grilled, but may be preserved after having been 

 dried in the oven. In Otaheite scarcely any other species is now 

 met with than the variety called " seedless," which grows abun- 

 dantly also in the Friendly archipelago, the Sandwich Isles, New 

 Hebrides, the Marianne and especially the Society islands. The 

 fruit of three trees is said to be sufficient to nourish a man for a 

 year. The flowers are used to prepare a sourish conserve. Dried, 

 they form a sort of tinder. The thickened latex becomes birdlime 

 for the use of the fowler. If to this we add that the wood, though 

 but slightly resistent, may be employed in the construction of huts 

 and that the bark and leaves serve for making mats, roofs, tissues, 

 the statement that the Bread tree alone supplies all the material 

 wants of this little-civilized people will be justified, and we shall 

 understand the superstitious legends which claim a celestial origin 

 for this precious vegetable. There are other species of Artocarpus 

 useful to man, though less appreciated than the preceding. A. 

 heterophylla,^ an Indian species cultivated also in the Mascarene isles, 



^ B. Br. Congo, 453. ' L. p. he. vit. — Hook. Bot. Mag. t. 2869, 



=> L. p. Suppl. 61.— Wight. Icon. t. 6, 8.— 2871.— Treo. loe. eit. 110.— Mek. et Del. loc. 



Hook. Bot. Mag. t. 2833, 6834. — Trec. Ann. cit. 455.— H. Bn. Diet. Meijcl. So. M£d. vi. 410. 



So. Nat. eer. 3, viii. 115. — MiR. et Del. Diet. — A. CommimisVovsT.^Soecus granosus Eumph. 



Mat. M£d. i. 454.— EostoTH. op. cit. 198.— H. Rerb. Amboin. i. 112, t. 3S. —Mademachia ineisa 



Bn. Diet. Emycl. So. M4d. yi. 410. — Soecm Thunb. Act. Holm, xxxvi. 252. — Rima Sonitek. 



major Eumph. Serb. Amboin. i. 104, t. 30. — S. Voyag. 99, t. 57-60. — Iridaps Rima Commers. 



minor Eumph. op. cit. t. 31. — Tsaja marum, (Arbre a Bain, Rima). 



Eheed. Sort. Malab. iii. 17, t. 26-28.— iJ«(fe- ■> Lamk. Diet. iii. 209.— Tkec. loc. cit. 117.— 



machia Integra IsvNB. — Bolyphema Jaca Itovn. Iridaps Oommers. hert. ! — A. philippinensis 



— Sitodium cauUfiorum G^ktn. Fruct, i. 346, t. Lamk. loc. cit. 210. — {Jaquier eterophylle). 



71, 72 (Ja^uier Jah, Jaoa). 



