Baobab

Baobab (Adansonia digitata), the monkey-bread or Ethiopian sour-gourd, is a remarkable tree. It is a member of the order Bombaceae, the silk-cotton family, and is a native of tropical Africa. It reaches a height of from 40 to 70 feet, but may have a diameter of 30 feet, being often narrower both above and below than it is in the middle of the stem. The wood is soft, and is hollowed out by negroes as a place of interment; but the fibre of the bark is a valuable paper-making material. The digitately-lobed leaves are used as a blood-purifier, and the pulp, which surrounds the seeds in the large capsular fruit, as a specific in fever.