ARTOCARPUS, in botany, tree. Class, Monoecia Monandria. Male flowers, cal. none ; ament cylindrical, all covered with florets ; cor. to each two petals, oblong, concave, blunt, villose ; stam. filaments single, within each corolla, filiform, the length of the corolla ; anther oblong. Female flowers, on the same tree : cal. and corolla none ; pist. germs very many ; connected into a globe, hex angular style to each, filiform ; stigma single, or two, capillary, revolute ; per. fruit ovate, globular, compound, muricate; seed for each germ solitary, oblong, co vered with a pulpy aril, placed on an oyate receptacle. There are but two species : 1.A. incisa, which is the dual, ness of a man, and upwards of 40 feet high : the trunk is upright ; the wood soft, smooth, and yellowish ; the inner bark white, composed of a net of stiffish fibres, the outer bark smooth, but full of chinks, pale ash-colour, with small tuber cles thinly scatteredover it. Wherever the tree is wounded, it pours out a glutinous milky liquor. The branches form an am ple almost globular head; the lower ones, which are the longest, spring from the trunk, 10 or 12 feet above the ground, spending almost horizontally, scattered, and in a sort of whorl ; twigs ascending, bearing flowers and fruit at their ends. In captain Cook's voyage it is observed, that the bread-fruit tree is about the size of a middling oak ; its leaves are fre quently a foot and a half long, oblong, deeply sinuated, like those of the fig-tree, which they resemble in consistence and colour, and in exuding a milky juice when broken. The fruit is the size and shape of a child's head, and the surface is reticulated not much unlike a truffle ; it is covered with a thin skin, and has a core about as big as the handle of a small knife ; the eatable part lies between the skin and core ; it is as white as snow, and of the consistence of new bread. It must be roasted before it is eaten, being first divided into three or four parts ; its taste is insipid, with a slight sweetness, somewhat resembling that of the crumb of wheaten bread mixed with the Jeru salem artichoke. The fruit not being in season all the year, there is a method of supplying this defect, by reducing it to sour paste, called makie ; and besides this, cocoa nuts, bananas, plantains, and a great variety of other fruits, come in aid of it. This tree not only supplies food, but also clothing, for the bark is stripped off the suckers and formed into a kind of cloth. To procure the fruit for food costs the Otaheiteans no trouble or labour but climbing a tree ; which, though it should not indeed shoot up spontaneously, yet, as captain Cook observes, if a man plant ten trees in his life time, he will as com pletely fulfil his duty to his own and fu ture generations, as the native of our less temperate climate can do by ploughing in the cold winter, and reaping in the summer's heat, as often as these seasons return ; even if, after he has procured bread for his present household, he should convert a surplus into money, and lay it up for his children. But where the trees are once introduced in a favourable soil and climate, so far from being obliged to renew them by planting, it seems pre babje that the inhabitants will rather be under the necessity of preventing their progress ; for young trees spring abun dantly from the roots of the old ones, which run along near the surface. Ac cordingly they never plant the bread-fruit tree at Otaheite. The bread-fruit is dis tinguished into that which is destitute of seeds, and that in which seeds are found. The natives of Otaheite reckon at least eight varieties of trees which produce the former. This most useful tree is distri buted very extensively over the East In dian continent and islands, as well as the innumerable islands of the South Seas. In Otaheite, however, and some others, the evident superiority of the seedless variety for food has caused the other to be neglected, and it is consequently almost worn out. We are informed by Captain King, that in the Sandwich islands these trees are planted and flourish with great luxuriance on rising grounds ; that they are not indeed in such abundance, but that they produce double the quantity of fruit which they do on the rich plains of Otaheite ; that the trees are nearly of the same height, but that the branches begin to strike out from the trunk much lower, and with greater luxuriance ; and that the climate of these islands differs very little from that of the West Indian Islands, which lie in the same latitude. This re flection probably first suggested the idea of conveying this valuable tree to our is lands in the West Indies. For this purpose his Majesty's ship the Bounty sailed, for the South Seas, on the 23d of December, 1787, under the command of lieutenant William Bligh. But a fatal mutiny pre vented the accomplishment of this bene volent design. His Majesty, however, not discouraged by the unfortunate event of the voyage, and fully impressed with the importance of securing so useful an article of food as the bread-fruit to our West Indian islands, determined, in the year 1791, to employ another ship for a second expedition on this service ; and, in order to secure the success of the voy age as much as possible, it was thought proper that two vessels should proceed together on this important business. Ac
cordingly, a ship of 400 tons, named the Providence, was engaged for the purpose, and the command of her given to captain Bligh ; and a small tender, called the As sistant, commanded by lieutenant Na thaniel Portlock. Sir Joseph Banks, as in the former voyage, directed the equip ment of the ship for this particular pur pose. Two skilful gardeners were ap pointed to superintend the trees and plants, from their transplantation at Ota heite, to their delivery at Jamaica ; and captain Bligh set sail on the 2d of August, 1791. The number of plants taken on board at Otaheite was 2634, in 1281 pots, tubs, and cases ; and of these 1151 were bread-fruit trees. When they arrived at Coupang, 200 plants were dead, but the rest were in good order. Here they pro cured 92 pots of the fruits of that coati try. They arrived at St. Helena with 830 fine bread-fruit trees, besides other plants. Here they left some of them, with differ ent fruits of Otaheite and Timor, besides mountain rice and other seeds ; and front hence the East Indies may be supplied with them. On their arrival at St. Vin cent's they had 551 cases, containing 678 bread-fruit trees, besides a great number of other fruits and plants, to the number of 1245. Near half this cargo was depo sited here, under the care of Mr. Alexan der Anderson, the superintendent of his Majesty's botanic garden, for the use of the Windward islands : and the remain der, intended for the Leeward islands, was conveyed to Jamaica, and distributed as the Govenor and Council of Jamaica were pleased to direct. The exact num ber of bread-fruit trees brought to Ja maica was 352, out of which five only were reserved for the botanic garden at Kew. Though the principal object of this voyage was to procure the bread fruit tree, yet it was not confined to this only ; for the design was, to furnish the West Indian Isles with the most valuable productions of the South Seas and the East Indies. Captain Bligh had the satis faction, before he quitted Jamaica, of see ing the trees which he had brought, with so much success, in a most flourishing state ; insomuch that no doubt remained of their growing well, and speedily pro ducing fruit ; an opinion which subse quent reports have confirmed. But though the fruit has been produced in great abundance, it is said not yet to have arriv ed at that high state of perfection in which it is described to be at Otaheite. Thun berg sent seeds of the East Indian bread fruit tree from Batavia to the botanic gar den at Amsterdam, in 1775. In 1777, he sent some small living plants ; and the year following, he brought with him to Europe a great number of plants, both of this and the following species. But the true seedless sort, from the South Seas, was first introduced into the islands of St. Vincent and Jamaica, and into the bo tanic garden at Kew, by captain Bligh, in 1793. The bread-fruit, when perfectly ripe is pulpy, sweetish, putrescent, and in this state is thought to be too laxative ; but when green it is farinaceous, and es teemed a very wholesome food, either baked tinder the coals, or roasted over them. The taste is not unlike that of wheaten bread, but with some resem blance to that of Jerusalem artichokes, or potatoes. It was mentioned before, that a sort of cloth was made of the inner bark : to this we may add, that the wood is used in building boats and houses; the male catkins serve for tinder; the leaves for wrapping their food in, and for wiping their hands instead of towels ; and the juice for making bird-lime, and as a ce ment for filling up the cracks of their ves sels for holding water. Three trees are supposed to yield sufficient nourishment for one person. 2. A. integriffilia, Indian jacca tree. The East Indian jacca, or jack tree, is about the same size as the foregoing, or perhaps larger. The foot stalk is somewhat triangular, smooth, and an inch in length. The fruit weighs 30 pounds and upwards ; it has within it frequently from two to three hundred seeds, three or four times as big as al monds ; they are ovate-oblong, blunt at one end, sharp at the other, and a little flatted on the sides.
These two species of Artocarpus can not be distinguished whh certainty, either by the form of the leaves, or the shim thin of the fruit ; for the leaves in this are sometimes lobed as on that ; and the situation of the fruit varies with the age of this tree, being first borne on the branch es, and then on the trunk, and finally on the roots. The jacca tree is a native of Malabar, and the other parts of the East Indies. The fruit is ripe in December, and is then eaten, but is esteemed difficult of digestion ; the unripe fruit is also used pickled, or cut into slices and boiled, or fried in palm oil. The nuts are eaten roasted, and the skin which immediately covers them is used instead of the areca nut in chewing betel. The wood of the tree serves for building. No less than 30 varieties of the fruit are enumerated in Malabar. It was introduced into the royal botanic garden at Kew, in 1778, by Sir Edward Hughes, Knight of the Bath.