Adansonia Digitata

The baobab tree, a native of Africa. It has

been called the tree of a thousand years, and Humboldt speaks of

it as "the oldest organic monument of our planet." Adanson, who

traveled in Senegal in 1794, made a calculation to show that one

of these trees, 30 feet in diameter, must be 5,150 years old. The

bark of the baobab furnishes a fiber which is made into ropes and

also manufactured into cloth. The fiber is so strong as to give

rise to a common saying in Bengal, "as secure as an elephant bound

with baobab rope." The pulp of the fruit is slightly acid, and the

juice expressed from it is valued as a specific in putrid and

pestilential fevers. The ashes of the fruit and bark, boiled in

rancid palm oil, make a fine soap.