Chap. VIII. VITALITY OF THE MOWANA-TEEE. 163 



external injury, not even a fire, can destroy this tree from without ; 

 nor can any injury be done from within, as it is quite common 

 to find it hollow ; and I have seen one in which twenty or thirty 

 men could he down and sleep as in a hut. Nor does cutting 

 down exterminate it, for I saw instances in Angola in which it 

 continued to grow in length after it was lying on the ground. 

 Those trees called exogenous grow by means of successive 

 layers on the outside. The inside may be dead, or even removed 

 altogether, without affecting the life of the tree. This is the 

 case with most of the trees of our climate. The other class is 

 called endogenous, and increases by layers applied to the inside ; 

 and when the hollow there is full, the growth is stopped — the tree 

 must die. Any injury is felt most severely by the first class on 

 the bark — by the second on the inside ; while the inside of the 

 exogenous may be removed, and the outside of the endogenous may 

 be cut, without stopping the growth in the least. The mowana 

 possesses the powers of both. The reason is that each of the 

 laminae possesses its own independent vitality ; in fact, the baobab 

 is rather a gigantic bulb run up to seed than a tree. Each of 

 eighty-four concentric rings had, in the case mentioned, grown 

 an inch after the tree had been blown over. The roots, which 

 may often be observed extending along the surface of the ground 

 forty or fifty yards from the trunk, also retain their vitality after 

 the tree is laid low ; and the Portuguese now know that the best 

 way to treat them is to let them alone, for they occupy much 

 more room when cut down than when growing. 



The wood is so spongy and soft, that an axe can be struck in 

 so far with a good blow that there is great difficulty in pulling it 

 out again. In the dead mowana mentioned the concentric rings 

 were well seen. The average for a foot at three different places 

 was eighty-one and a half of these rings. Each of the lamina? 

 can be seen to be composed of two, three, or four layers of ligneous 

 tubes ; but supposing each ring the growth of one year, and the 

 semidiameter of a mowana of one hundred feet in circumference 

 about seventeen feet, if the central point were in the centre of 

 the tree, then its age would lack some centuries of being as old 

 as the Christian era (1400). Though it possesses amazing vitality, 

 it ie difficult to believe that this great baby-looking bulb or tree is 

 as old as the pyramids. 



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