116 
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
Livingstone, the orthodox, says: "1 would back a true 
Mowana (the name given it in the neighborhood of Lake 
Ngami), against a dozen floods, provided you do not boil it 
in salt water ; but I cannot believe that any of these now alive 
had a chance of being subjected to the experiment, even of the 
Noachian deluge." The tree has various uses. Its strong 
fibre furnishes very durable ropes, so that in Bengal it is a 
common expression, "As secure as an elephant bound with a 
baobab rope." The pounded leaves are mixed by the Africans 
with soups under the name of ''Lalo." They diminish perspira- 
tion and keep the blood healthy. The fruit is a very useful 
part of the tree. It contains a slightly acid, agreeable pulp, 
and is frequently eaten, while the expressed juice, mixed with 
sugar, is a very healthful drink, and employed even as a 
febrifuge. The branches being short and curving, and the 
trunk so broad in proportion to the height, the plant assumes 
a dome-like appearance. 
Providence, R. I. 
'WENTY years ago, the teaching of botany in this state 
^ consisted chiefly of plant description and identification 
principally by means of the flower. That was the kind of 
botany taught me, and however much it may have been con- 
demned, yet the so-called "analysis of flowers" was a de- 
lightful study. I would make long journeys to the woods 
and along the lake shores and the river valleys that I might 
have the pleasure of finding a specimen new to me. That was 
the way I taught botany, and I had my pupils watch for the 
first spring flowers just as the Audubon people are now doing 
with the birds. Now it may be that the old way of teaching 
botany or the old matter that was taught, was not as scientific 
as more modem methods and subject matter, yet they had at 
least one virtue and that is they took the pupil out into the 
woods. If the only object the pupil had was to find a new 
NATURAL HISTORY OR LIFE HISTORY? 
