THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
115 
gustifolium) and that curious variety of the Christmas fern 
known as Polystichum acrostichoides crispum. But space will 
not allow me to enumerate all the plants collected and carried 
home for further study and future reference. Only those who 
have made such a trip in the company of an enthusiastic botan- 
ist can appreciate its delights. 
Shushan, N. Y. 
THE BAOBAB. 
BY DR. WM. W. BAILEY. 
WE Americans are inclined to think that we possess a 
monopoly of the world's big trees. We were fairly 
delighted and filled with patriotic pride when the great conifer 
of California, first named after Wellington, had to be relegated 
to the genus Sequoia. 
Our red-woods of the same genus, now alas ! fast diminsh- 
ing before the demand for lumber, are many of them enormous. 
Many a white pine in our north-eastern woods is a splendid 
giant. But even before our recognized "big trees" were dis- 
covered, the Adansonia or baobab was known to travellers, 
and since then, the great gum-trees, (Eucalyptus) of Australia 
have put in a just claim for size. 
The baobab or sour-gourd is a native of many parts of 
Africa; it rises to seventy or more feet in height, while the 
diameter of the trunk may be of the astonishing proportion of 
100 feet ! The large, solitary, white flowers are six inches in 
length and hang on long stalks. They are succeeded by a 
hard, woody capsule, eight inches, or sometimes a foot in 
length, and, in appearance, like a gourd. 
The plant is sometimes known as "monkey-head," and 
was called by Humbolt "the tree of a thousand years." He 
calls it also "the oldest organic monument of our planet," 
Adanson, whose name the plant commemorates, made a calcu- 
lation to show that it must be 5150 years old. It is not stated 
how firm was his belief in Bishop Usher's chronology. 
