MONKEY BREAD NUTS, OR FRUIT. OF THE BAOBAB. 



347 



: The trees producing these nuts are distinguished by a variety of popular 

 names, all, more or less, indicative of some of their striking peculiarities ; as, 



Baobab Tree, 



Ethiopian Sour Gourd, 



Cream of Tartar Tree, 



Corn Tree (Hughes), 



Monkey Bread Tree, 



African or Monkey Tamarind Tree, &c. &c. 

 They belong to the Natural Order Sterculiacese, and to Class Monadelphia, 

 Order Polyandria, of the Linntean system, and only two distinct species 

 are known to exist, — Adansonia digitata, indigenous to Africa and the West 

 Indies, and Adansonia Gregorii, indigenous to Australia. 



The chief external feature of the Baobab trees is their great size ; a fact 

 strongly noticed by all travellers and botanists, and embodied in their 

 descriptive accounts ; as, " Vegetable monster" (Bennett) — " Behemoth of the 

 forest" (Gilpin) — " A tree of large dimensions" (Adanson) — "Largest tree 

 in the world " (Paxton) — " Gigantic Baobab " (Baikie) — &c. &c. They are 

 not tall and towering trees, but short and spreading like the oak, and throw 

 out branches at heights varying from ten to twenty feet, or thereabouts. In 

 girth they are enormous ; to illustrate which I have arranged the following 

 table of some notable specimens. 



Name of Traveller, &c. 



Height from Ground. 



Circumference. 



Baikie 



» 

 Livingstone 

 Paxton 

 Bennett 



3 feet 

 18 „ 

 3 „ 



. 2 „ 



30 feet 

 80 „ 

 85 „ 

 90 „ 



85 „ 





26 feet 



370 feet 



Average, say 



6 feet 



74 feet 



Livingstone mentions spending a night near one of these trees, which was 

 hollow, and capable of accommodating twenty men, and had formerly been 

 used as a habitation. 



Baobab trees appear to be not the less remarkable in their internal cha- 

 racteristics ; for Livingstone asserts that nothing short of boiling the tree 

 in sea-water could possibly destroy its vitality. Constantly barked by the 

 natives of Africa, the tree nevertheless retains its full vigour, and a removal 

 of the very core or centre of the stem would not, according to that tra- 

 veller, affect the existence of the tree ; and " the reason is," to quote his 

 own words, " that each of the laminae possesses its own independent vita- 

 lity ; in fact, the Baobab is rather a gigantic bulb run up to seed than a 

 tree." Unlike most of the vegetation which adorns the warm regions of the 

 earth, these trees are deciduous in habit, being sometimes quite bare of 

 foliage, and in Australia, at least, serve to remind the colonist of those 



