BAOBAB, ba'O-bab (Adansonia digitata), a tree belonging to the family Boinbacacece, which was named after the naturalist Adan son. It is also called the monkey-bread tree. The leaves are deep green and are divided into five unequal digitate lanceolate leaflets. This tree is a native of western and northern Africa; it is cultivated in many of the warmer parts of the world. It is one of the largest known trees, its trunk being sometimes not less than 30 feet in diameter. In Adanson's account of Senegal some calculations are made regarding the growth of this tree, founded on the evidence of the annular layers. The height of its trunk by no means corresponds with the thickness which it attains. Thus, according to his calculations, at one year old its diameter is one inch; and its height five inches; at 32 years old it has attained a diameter of two feet, while its height is only 22 feet, and so on; till at 1,000 years old the baobab is 14 feet broad and 58 feet high; and at 5,000 years the growth literally has so outstripped its perpen dicular height that the trunk will be 30 feet in diameter and only 73 feet high. The roots, again, are of a most extraordinary length, so that in a tree with a stem 77 feet in girth the main branch or tap-root measures 110 feet in length. It often happens that the profusion of leaves and of drooping boughs almost hide the stem, and the whole forms a hemispherical mass of verdure 140 to 150 feet in diameter and 60 to 70 feet high. The wood is pale-col ored, light and soft, so that in Abyssinia the wild bees perforate it and lodge their honey in the hollow, which honey is considered the best in the country. The negrocs on the western
coast apply the trunks to a very extraordinary purpose. The tree is liable to be attacked by a fungus which, vegetating in the woody part without changing the color or appearance, de stroys life and renders the part so attacked as soft as the pith of trees in general. Such trunks are then hollowed into chambers, and within these are suspended the dead bodies of those to whom are refused the honor of burial. There they become mummies, perfectly dry and well preserved, without further prep aration or embalming, and are known by the name of quiriots. The baobab is emollient and mucilaginous; the pulverized leaves constitute lalo, a favorite article with the natives, which they mix with their daily food to diminish ex cessive perspiration, and which is even used by Europeans in fevers and diarrhceas. The flow ers are large, white and handsome; and in their first expansion bear some resemblance to the white poppy, having snow-white petals and violet-colored stamens. Both flowers and fruit are pendent, and the leaves drop off before the periodical rains come on. The fruit is of an oblong shape, of considerable size, and tastes like gingerbread, with a pleasant acid flavor. The expressed juice, when mixed with sugar, forms a cooling drink much used in putrid fevers; this juice is generally used as a sea soning for corn gruel and other food. The bark furnishes a strong fibre.