Note 8 — Chapter I

“The largest tree in the world is the Adansonia or Baobab tree, the trunk of which has been found with a diameter of thirty feet; but its height is not in proportion. It is emollient and mucilaginous in all its parts. The leaves dried and reduced to powder constitute Lalo, a favourite article with the Africans, which they mix daily with their food, for the purpose of diminishing the excessive perspiration to which they are subject in those climates; and even Europeans find it serviceable in cases of diarrhœa, fevers, and other maladies. The fruit is, perhaps, the most useful part of the tree. Its pulp is slightly acid and agreeable, and frequently eaten; while the juice is expressed from it, mixed with sugar, and constitutes a drink which is valued as a specific in putrid and pestilential fevers.”—Hooker’s Bot. Mag. 2792.

“The dried pulp is mixed with water, and administered in Egypt in dysentery. It is chiefly composed of a gum, like gum senegal, a sugary matter, starch, and an acid, which appears to be malic.”—Delile Cent. 12. Quoted in Lindley’s Int. to the Nat. Syst. of Botany.