The Fungis.

springs up vigorously with the first rains of tlie approaching karif. The woods and forests were formed, in a great part, of the Acacia gumriiifera, which with its products alone offers sufficient resources to the people who live on doora . and milk. And these woods and forests suffer seriously from the ignorance of the agriculturists ; the burning of the grass on such vast extents of land aft'ects the roots of the trees, which suffer and are stunted in growth, Near Roseres, the route from being monotonous becomes cheerful, and the eye is delighted with an alteration of fresh prospects and fresh productions ; the road is no longer level, but is interrupted by little hills on Avhich grow palms with their slender trunks, and the Adavsonia digitata with its gigantic proportions. From Khartoum to Roseres one seldom meets with the palm, and then it is weak and stunted ; at Roseres, on the contrary, it grows luxuriantly, and on the plains, the hills and the mountains, its picturesqueness animates the tired traveller, and encourages him to seek under its welcome shade a new supply of strength and energy. The Adansonia digitata is a tree in which everything is fantastic, its branches have the appearance of roots ; it looks like a tree upside down.

It is a dicotyledon of the family of the Malvaceo', and bears its name because Adanson was the first to study it. It only appears at 12° latitude, and if it be transported above or below this line, it dies or is dwarfed. Its size is fabulous. Some trees measure forty feet in circumference, and seventy-five in height. The specimen studied by Adanson is believed to have been no less than five thousand years old. It is a spongy tree, with thin bark, a smooth trunk and roots very strongly developed. We have observed that if it grows solitary in a place where water stays, its trunk becomes more gigantic, but splits as if it were four trees, and, as much