ADANSONIA, so called iu honour of Michael Adanson, the French naturalist, is an extraordinary tree found in Africa within the tropics, particularly in Senegal, where it is called Baobab.
The celebrated traveller Humboldt considers it as the 'oldest organic monument of our planet,' in consequence of the calculations of Adanson that specimens, still found on the north-west coast of Africa, are probably 5000 years old ; these calculations are, however, open to many objections.
In appearance, Adansonia is unlike any other known tree: the enormous dirneterions of its trunk bear a striking disproportion to the other parts. It Is not unusual to find • trunk not more than 12 or 15 feet from the root to the branches, with a circumference of 75 or 78 feet. The lower branches are very long, and at first horizontal, extending perhaps 60 feet ; the consequence of which is that they bend down to the ground, entirely hiding the trunk, and giving the tree the appearance of a huge mass of verdure. The wood is very soft, even when in perfection, and is subject to a dieease, which may be compared to the very malady of which its celebrated dis coverer died—a sort of softening of all the hard parts, so that the least storm is sufficient to overthrow and dismember its enormous bulk. A curious practice prevails among the negroes of hollowing its trunk out into chambers, and therein depositing the bodies of male factors, or of persons to whom the usual rites of sepulture are denied. In this situation the bodies become dried up, and soon acquire the state of perfect mummies.
Adansonia belongs to the natural order Bombatem, among which it is at once known by a broad tube of stamens and deciduous calyx, combined with a woody closed fruit, containing a soft pulp.
The only species is Adansonia digitata, the Monkey-Bread, Sour Gourd, Lalo Plant, &c., of the African negroes. The leaves are deep green, and divided into five unequal parts, each of which is of a narrow lanceolate figure, and radiates from a common centre, the outermost divisions being the smallest, The flowers grow singly in a pendulous position from the bosom of the leaves, are very large, white, c pled at the edge, and have the petals very much reflexed. The stamens are very numerous, and are collected into n tube, which spreads at the top into a sort of umbrella-like head, from the midst of which arises a slender curved style, terminatad by a rayed stigma. The fruit is an oblong, dull green, downy body, eight or nine inches long, containing neveml cells, in each of which there is a number of hard shining seeds immersed in a soft pulp, which is scarcely juicy. From this pulp the negroes prepare an acidulous drink, much rased in the fevers of the country. The bruised leaves, in a dry• state, form a substance called laic, which they mix with their food and imagine is useful in checking, or counteracting, the effects of profuse perspi ration. Like the rest of the order, Adansonia is emollient and mucilaginous in all its soft parts.