The breadfruit (as we call it) grows on a large tree, as big and high as our largest apple-trees:  It hath a spreading head, full of branches and dark leaves.  The fruit grows on the boughs like apples; it is as big as a penny-loaf when wheat is at five shillings the bushel; it is of a round shape, and hath a thick tough rind.  When the fruit is ripe it is yellow and soft, and the taste is sweet and pleasant.  The natives of Guam use it for bread.  They gather it, when full-grown, while it is green and hard; then they bake it in an oven, which scorches the rind and makes it black; but they scrape off the outside black crust, and there remains a tender thin crust; and the inside is soft, tender, and white like the crumb of a penny-loaf.  There is neither seed nor stone in the inside, but all is of a pure substance, like bread.  It must be eaten new; for, if it is kept above twenty-four hours, it grows harsh and choaky; but it is very pleasant before it is too stale.  This fruit lasts in season eight months in the year, during which the natives eat no other sort of food of bread kind.  I did never see of this fruit anywhere but here.  The natives told us that there is plenty of this fruit growing on the rest of the Ladrone islands; and I did never hear of it anywhere else.  Volume 1 page 296.

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Extract from the account of Lord Anson’s voyage, published by Mr. Walter.

There was at Tinian a kind of fruit, peculiar to these (Ladrone) islands, called by the Indians rhymay, but by us the breadfruit; for it was constantly eaten by us, during our stay upon the island, * instead of bread; and so universally preferred that no ship’s bread was expended in that whole interval.  It grew upon a tree which is somewhat lofty, and which towards the top divides into large and spreading branches.  The leaves of this tree are of a remarkable deep green, are notched about the edges, and are generally from a foot to eighteen inches in length.  The fruit itself is found indifferently on all parts of the branches; it is in shape rather elliptical than round; it is covered with a tough rind and is usually seven or eight inches long; each of them grows singly and not in clusters.  This fruit is fittest to be used when it is full-grown but still green; in which state, after it is properly prepared by being roasted in the embers, its taste has some distant resemblance to that of an artichoke’s bottom, and its texture is not very different, for it is soft and spongy.

(Footnote.  About two months, namely from the latter end of August to the latter end of October, 1742.)

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Extracts from the account of the first voyage of captain cook.  HAWKESWORTH, volume 2.