22 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



ity in fashioning an extemporized drinking cup from a taro 

 leaf. 



Banana trees are everywhere to be seen, but not generally 

 planted for ornament. The trade wind blows too constantly 

 to allow them to keep a whole leaf more than a day or two, 

 unless under shelter of a house. The stranger is surprised 

 at the variety of- bananas, as different from one another as 

 the varieties of pear or apple. Some grow on small "trees," 

 not more than six feet high; others run up fifteen, twenty and 

 even twenty-five feet. The rapidity of growth is something 

 amazing. Cut off the trunk of a half-grown plant; you find 

 that it is made up simply of the sheaths of leaf stalks, the 

 center occupied by the coming leaf, which immediately be- 

 gins to push forward, so that in a few minutes it projects no- 

 ticeably, and in half a day it will have grown out several 

 inches. 



Your guide will point out to you as the traveler's palm 

 a plant which your botanist's eye will recognize as a banana 

 ratlier than a palm. Unlike the common banana, it is a 

 branching, perennial plant, and — another point of contrast — 

 its great banners of leaves are so tough in texture that they 

 are but little split to pieces by the wind. The flower clusters 

 are lateral, not terminal and the bracts are persistent, so that 

 the fruit is concealed from view^ You find, however, that 

 it resembles a banana in shape, although only four inches 

 long. But the part of the fruit which in the banana is the 

 edible pulp, is tough and horny, and your curiosity to know 

 what is inside subsides after you have tried your knife on it 

 a while. You will make a mistake, though, if you throw the 

 refractory thing away. Take it home and let it lie a day 

 "in the sun, and you will find that your curiosity was justi- 

 fied. The tough fruit yields to the persuation of the sun 



