240 P?ant "bore, "begef^t)/, ani. Isiiric/. 



their deity. In various parts of India there is a superstitious behef 

 that the flowering and seeding of various species of Bamboo is a 

 sure prognostication of an approaching famine.— Europeans have 

 noticed, as an invariable rule, in Canara, that when the Bamboos 

 flower and seed, fever prevails. At the foot of the Ghauts, and 

 round Yellapur, it has been observed that when the Bamboos 

 flowered and seeded, fever made its appearance, few persons es- 

 caping it. During blossom, the fever closely resembles hay fever 



at home, but the type becomes more severe as the seeds fall. The 



poor, homeless fishermen of China, to supply themselves with vege- 

 tables, have invented a system of culture which may move with 

 them, and they thus transport their gardens wherever they may go. 

 This they do by construcfting rafts of Bamboo, which are well 

 woven with weeds and strong grass, and then launched on the 

 water and covered with earth. These floating gardens are made 

 fast to the stern of their junks and boats, and towed after them. 



BANANA. — The Banana {Mnsa sapientum) and the Plantain 

 (M. paradisiaca) are so closely related, as to be generally spoken 

 of together. The Banana has been well designated 'the king of 

 all fruit, and the greatest boon bestowed by Providence on the 

 inhabitants of hot countries. According to Gerarde, who calls it 

 in his Herbal, Adam's Apple Tree, it was supposed in his time by 

 the Grecians and Christians inhabiting Syria, as well as by the 

 Jews, to be that tree of whose fruit Adam partook at Eve's solici- 

 tation — the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, planted by the 

 Lord Himself in the midst of the Garden of Eden. It has also 

 been supposed that the Grapes brought by the Israelites' spies to 

 Moses out of the Holy Land, were in reality the fruit of the 



Banana-tree. In the Canary Islands, the Banana is never cut 



across with a knife because it then exhibits a representation of the 

 Crucifixion. Gerarde refers to this mark, remarking that the fruit 

 " pleaseth and entiseth a man to eate liberally thereof, by a 

 certaine entising sweetnesse it yields; in which fruit, if it be cut 

 according to the length, oblique, transverse, or any other way, 

 whatsoever, may be scene the shape and forme of a crosse, with 

 a man fastened thereto. My selfe have scene the fruit, and cut it 

 in pieces, which was brought me from Aleppo, in pickle: the crosse, 

 I might perceive, as the form of a spred-Egle in the root of Feme; 

 but the man I leave to be sought for by those which have better 



eies and judgement than m}^ selfe." A certain sec^ of Brahmans, 



called Yogis, place all their food in the leaves of the Plantain, or 

 Apple of Paradise, and other large leaves; these they use dry, 

 never green, for they say that the green leaves have a soul in 

 them ; and so it would be sinful. 



BANYAN TREE.— The Indian Fig-tree {Ficus Indica), of 

 which one of the Sanscrit names is Bahupdda, or the Tree of 

 Many Feet, is one of the sacred trees of India, and is remarkable 



