Rerty”. 
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CLASSIFICATION OF PLANTS, 127 
and often in Eastern countries as umbrellas; the fibres of various 
parts are used for cordage and clothing; the sap of some species is used 
as a beverage, and when fermented, resembles a kind of beer, or wine 
—the toddy of India, from which, by distillation, a kind of spirit called 
arrack is obtained ; the soft internal part of the stem of some species 
yields sago, and a few species are valuable for their fruit. The most 
important of these are the date-palm and the cocoa-nut palm. The date-* 
palm supplies the inhabitants of Egypt and many other countries with a 
great part of their food. The cocoa-nut palm is found on the sea-coast of 
all tropical countries. The nut is valuable as an article of food and for 
the oil which it yields ; and from the husk a kind of cordage is made, called 
coir ; it is also much used for the manufacture of matting. 
Grasses clothe a great part of the surface of the earth. To this 
order belong all the corn-plants, of which the most important are wheat, 
barley, oats, rye, rice, maize, and millet. Grasses are in general 
herbaceous plants with hollow jointed stems; but some tropical species, 
as bamboos, become shrubs or trees. Grasses afford the greater part of 
the food of oxen, sheep, and other herbivorous animals. The seeds of the 
corn-plants or cereal! grasses also supply a principal part of human food. 
The -stems of bamboos are used for various purposes, as timber for the 
construction of houses, as pipes for conveying water, &e. 
Only a few of the other orders of endogenous plants can be mentioned 
here. The order Liliacew, as its name implies, contains lilies and many 
other plants remarkable for the beauty of their flowers. To this order 
belong the medicinal plants called aloes and squills, also the flax-lily of 
New Zealand, from the leaves of whichis obtained the valuable fibre 
called New Zealand flax.—The order Amaryllidacee, from Latin amaryllis, 
the snowdrop, contains a great number of species having very beautiful 
flowers, among which are the narcissus, jonquil, and snowdrop. Some 
useful plants belong to this order, as the onion and leek, and the 
American aloe, the leaves of which yield a.fibre useful for cordage, and 
the juice of the flower-stem a beverage much used in Mexico, called 
pulque.—tThe order Iridacee, of which the iris and crocus are examples, 
is chiefly notable for the beauty of its flowers—An important order 
of plants, all natives of warm parts of the world, bears the name of 
Musacee, from Latin musa, the plantain-tree. The plants of this 
order are among the largest of herbaceous plants, and false stems formed 
by the stalks of their great leaves give them the appearance of trees. 
The banana and plantain belong to this order. The plantain is used in 
many tropical countries as a substitute for bread; and of all the plants 
which supply human food, it is by far the most productive. The leaves of 
some of the Musacee yield a useful fibre, and that of one species, a native 
1So called from Ceres, the Grecian and Roman goddess of corn. 
