THE BANANA FAMILY. 407 



and the most interesting and majestic productions of floral nature. 

 Their towering and usually unbranched stems shoot far above the 

 ordinary forest-tree ; the gigantic leaves that crown their summits are 

 like boughs ; and the abundance of their blossoms and fruits is vast 

 almost beyond counting. A single spatha of the date-palm contains 

 above twelve thousand blossoms, and every branch of the seje-palm of 

 the Orinoco bears eight thousand. The variety of their service to man, 

 as donors of food, raiment, and useful household articles is on a par 

 with their splendour as trees, and in tropical regions gives them an 

 importance superior even to that of the corn-fields of our own country. 

 Dates (the produce of the "palm-tree" of Scripture), coco-nuts, sago, 

 coco-nut matting, vegetable ivory, of which every lady's work-box now 

 contains some pretty carved specimen, palm-oil, the brooms used by 

 our city scavengers, and the brushes of Mr. Whitworth's patent street- 

 sweeping machines, are but a few of the every-day articles that come 

 from palm-trees, while the stems of the Calamus furnish schoolmasters 

 with that fine alterative and stimulant medicine called the cane. 

 Tropical countries are almost the only seats of the growth of palm- 

 trees, no species occurring nearer England than the extreme south of 

 France, where they cease with the little fan-palm. Hence they are 

 only seen with us in hot-houses, and near Manchester scarcely at aU 

 except at the Botanic gardens, where there are small specimens of 

 several interesting species. For particulars respecting this sujDerb and 

 inestimable family the student may consult Dr, Seeman's " Popular 

 History of the Palms and their allies," an excellent and cheap little 

 volume. 



CXXXVI.-THE BANANA FAMILY. MusdcetB. 



Splendid herbaceous plants resembling palms in figure and foliage, 

 and agreeing with them as to uses and native countries. All books 

 that treat of tropical life and adventure have something to say about the 

 fruits called the '^plantain" and the "banana," or about the value of 

 their leaves and fibre, the latter of which is the material of the finest 

 India muslins. Every good green-house has its specimen of the 

 Musa Cavendishn, — a noble plant, with a tall, straight, thick stem, 

 several feet in height, with a crown of prodigious leaves, that arch 

 away from it magnificently, and a drooping cluster of crimson flowers, 

 which changes, in due course, into an enormous bunch of fruits, 

 resembling Windsor beans, but cylindrical, and filled with sweet pulp. 



