Baobab (Adansonia digitata), a tree of enormous size, of the natural order bombacece, found in Africa, and especially in Senegal, though it has been met with on the banks of the White Nile in the vicinity of the southern tropic. It was first discovered in 1748 by Adanson, in his voyage to Senegal, and it has been raised in England from seeds. It was carried to India many centuries ago, and one of great size is at Alipore near Calcutta. The trunk is from 15 to 60 ft. high and from 70 to 75 ft. in circumference. Its lower branches grow horizontally, frequently to the length of 60 ft., and hang to the ground, concealing the trunk. The leaves are large and abundant, of a dark green color, and divided into five radiating lanceolate leaflets; they are used by the natives as an anti-sudorific. The flower is large, white, with stamens gathered in a tube below, but spreading like an umbrella above, surmounted by a long, slender, and recurved style, terminated by a rayed stigma; petals reflexed and calyx deciduous. The fruit is a soft, pulpy, but dry substance, about the size of a quart bottle, enclosed in a long dull green woody pod; the pulp between the seeds tastes like cream of tartar, is used by the natives to give a flavor to porridge, and is much esteemed as an antifebrile.

The baobab is also called monkey bread, sour gourd, and lalo plant. The natives make a strong cord from the fibres obtained from its pounded bark. To this end they often wholly strip the trunk of its bark, which is replaced by a new one. No external injury, not even fire, can destroy it from without, nor can it be injured from within, as it is quite common to find it hollow. Even cutting down does not exterminate it, for it continues to grow in length while lying on the ground, and its roots, which reach 40 or 50 yards from the trunk, retain their vitality. Livingstone judged that one of the baobab trees which he examined was at least 1,400 years old. It is subject to a very remarkable disease, a softening of its woody structure, until it falls by its own weight a mass of ruins. The natives use the trunk hollowed out as a place of deposit for executed criminals whom the law denies the rights of burial. In this position the bodies soon wither and dry up, having much the appearance of mummies.