Fossil Plants as Tests of Climate

Abstract

IN continuation of my recent letter, permit me to call attention to a communication on the bread fruit trees in North America, by Mr. F. H. Knowlton, of the National Museum, Washington, U.S., which appears in your American contemporary Science for January 13. The forty living species of Artocarpus are all confined to tropical Asia and the Malay Archipelago. A. incisa, the true bread fruit tree, and one or two others, are largely cultivated in the tropics. They are small or medium-sized trees with a milky juice, large leathery leaves, and monœcious flowers. The female flowers are long club-shaped spikes, which uniting form one large mass known as the “bread fruit,” the interior containing a pulp when ripe like new bread.