254 TROPICAL NATURE 



and handsome flowers. The bananas and plantains are well 

 known as among the most luxuriant and beautiful productions 

 of the tropics. Many species occur wild in the forests ; all 

 have majestic foliage and handsome flowers, while some pro- 

 duce edible fruit. Of the ginger-worts (Zingiberaceae and 

 Marantacese), the well-known cannas of our sub -tropical 

 gardens may be taken as representatives, but the equatorial 

 species are very numerous and varied, often forming dense 

 thickets in damp places, and adorning the forest shades with 

 their elegant and curious or showy flowers. The maranths 

 produce "arrowroot," while the ginger -worts are highly 

 aromatic, producing ginger, cardamums, grains of paradise, 

 turmeric, and several medicinal drugs. The Musaceae pro- 

 duce the most valuable of tropical fruits and foods. The 

 banana is the variety which is always eaten as a fruit, having 

 a delicate aromatic flavour ; the plantain is a larger variety, 

 which is best cooked. Eoasted in the green state it is an 

 excellent vegetable, resembling roasted chestnuts ; when ripe 

 it is sometimes pulped and boiled with water, making a very 

 agreeable sweet soup ; or it is roasted, or cut into slices and 

 fried, in either form being a delicious tropical substitute for 

 fruit pudding. These plants are annuals, producing one im- 

 mense bunch of fruit. This bunch is sometimes four or five feet 

 long, containing near two hundred plantains, and often weighs 

 about a hundredweight. They grow very close together, and 

 Humboldt calculated that an acre of plantains would supply 

 more food than could be obtained from the same extent of 

 ground by any other known plant. Well may it be said that 

 the plantain is the glory of the tropics, and well was the 

 species named by Linnaeus Musa paradisiaca ! 



Another very characteristic and remarkable group of 

 tropical plants are the epiphytal and climbing arums. 

 These are known by their large, arrow-shaped, dark green 

 and glossy leaves, often curiously lobed or incised, and 

 sometimes reticulated with large open spaces, as if pieces had 

 been regularly eaten out of them by some voracious insects. 

 Sometimes they form clusters of foliage on living or dead 

 trees, to which they cling by their aerial roots. Others climb 



