bread tree, noun phrase

Origin:
South African DutchShow more Translation of South African Dutch broodboom, see broodboom.
Any of several species of cycad of the genus Encephalartos of the Zamiaceae, especially E. altensteinii and E. longifolius; breadfruit; bread palm; broodboom; Hottentot(’s) bread sense (a), see Hottentot noun sense 6 a. See also Modjadji sense 3.
1786 G. Forster tr. of A. Sparrman’s Voy. to Cape of G.H. I. 347On a height near the uppermost farm on Zeekoe-rivier grew the bread-tree (brood-boom) of the Hottentots, discovered by Professor Thunberg, and of which he has given a description and drawing by the name of the Cycas Caffra.
1795 C.R. Hopson tr. of C.P. Thunberg’s Trav. I. 201The Bread tree Zamia caffra is a species of palm, which grows on the hills, below the mountains, on these tracts. It was of the height and thickness of a man at most, very much spread, and single. It is out of the pith, (medulla) of this tree that the Hottentots contrive to prepare their bread.
1834 T. Pringle Afr. Sketches 204The Hottentot bread-tree, a species of palm.
1917 R. Marloth Dict. of Common Names of Plants 16Bread-tree, Kaffir—. Encephalartos caffer, E. Lehmanni, E. Allensteinii, etc. The pith contains starch and is turned into a food by the natives, like sago.
1965 S. Eliovson S. Afr. Wild Flowers for Garden 222Encephalartos, Cycad, Bread Tree, Broodboom. The Cycads are said to be living fossils in that they are descendants of a primitive type of vegetation that covered the earth long before the time of early man.
1977 E. Palmer Field Guide to Trees of Sn Afr. 64Bread Tree, Encephalartos altensteinii...Eastern Cape, from Bushman’s River..eastwards and northwards to southern Natal border, coastal bush and forest.
1988 H. Goosen in S. Afr. Panorama Mar. 35Thunberg had observed how the Hottentots were preparing a crude type of bread from the stem of a tree-like plant. The popular name bread-tree derives from this incident.
1990 R. Stengel January Sun 11The cycad is known as the..bread tree in English. The plant’s pith yields a starch that was used to make bread by de la Rey’s ancestors, the Boers, the country’s first white settlers.
Any of several species of cycad of the genus Encephalartos of the Zamiaceae, especially E. altensteinii and E. longifolius; breadfruit; bread palm; broodboom; Hottentot(’s) bread sense (a), see Hottentot noun sense 6 a.
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