Description
Watercolour illustration commissioned by William Roxburgh. ROX969.
In his 'Flora Indica' Roxburgh describes this plant as a tree which is very scarce in India, and 'probably not a native of Asia'. Roxburgh tells that in the Botanic Garden of Calcutta, where this tree blossoms in May and June, and ripens its seed in the cool season, there is a 25 year old plant of 'Adansonia digitata', with an irregular, short and sub-conical trunk, which is 18 feet in circumference. In a letter sent to Roxburgh the 2nd of July 1802, from Mantolle, in Sri Lanka, General Hay Macdowell notes: 'In my walk last night on the ruins of this once rich and extensive city, called by the natives Mande or Maddoo-ooltum, I chanced to observe a tree whose prodigious magnitude induced me to measure it...fifty feet in circumference, above six feet from the ground, the natives call it Peerig, and from what I have been able to collect, it is not indigenous here.'
Roxburgh, 'Flora Indica' (1832) v.3, p.164.
Image Licence
All Rights Reserved
Image Credit
image © Board of Trustees, RBG Kew
Location
South Asia
Medium
Watercolour
Tags
Category
Flora & Fauna
