THE BAOBAB 167 



remainder, including probably the most valuable, 

 namely L. kirkii, are dwellers in moist forests and 

 rocky mountainous ravines, where their girth is 

 increased and strengthened by the dense tree 

 growths and the constant irrigation of the perennial 

 torrents from the marshy p] ateaux above. A curious 

 range of tropical growths is covered by the last 

 order mentioned, extending from those common 

 and often troublesome weeds the Sida tribola and 

 the S. cordifolia, through the wild cotton-producing 

 Gossypium anomalum which appears on the borders 

 of forest country and abandoned native gardens, 

 to that horrible remnant of a disordered dream the 

 gigantic, useless baobab {Adansonia digitata). This 

 last loathly monster, which, with its smooth, grey, 

 diseased-looking bark, and gouty, unsightly, naked 

 limbs, to say nothing of its spongy, useless, un- 

 acceptable apology for wood, is usually an indication 

 of valueless, stony, uncultivable soil. Its flowers, 

 which depend from long stalks, are of a dirty white, 

 with yellow centres, and remind you, for their 

 short blooming season, of so many inartistic electric- 

 lamp reflectors. These in due course give place to 

 huge seed vessels containing a white, sour-sweet, 

 powdery pulp, of which a beverage may be concocted 

 vaguely recalling an inferior sherbet which has 

 ceased to eiFervesce. In many parts of South 

 Africa this vegetable monster, whose trunk some- 

 times exceeds 80 feet in circumference, has come to 

 be known as the " Cream of Tartar Tree." In the 

 neighbourhood of the Lupata Gorge, the baobab 

 is very well represented, as it is for many days to 

 the westward. 



