72 CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER 



which the settler may devote himself. Rubber offers 

 belated fortune. Cotton, rice, tobacco and fibre - plants 

 flourish exceedingly, and in the production of ginger and 

 some sort of spices and medicinal gums, profit may be 

 possible. The manufacture of manilla rope from the fibre 

 of the easily cultivated Musa lextilis may be a remunera- 

 tive industry. It is amply demonstrated that butter quite 

 up to the standard of exportation is to be manufactured in 

 tropical Queensland. 



No one need starve or pine for lack of wholesome 

 appetising and nutritious food while the banana grows as 

 it does in North Queensland, and common as it is, the 

 banana is one of the curiosities of the vegetable world. One 

 writer says : " It is not a tree, a palm, a bush, a vegetable, 

 nor a herb; it is simply a herbaceous plant with the 

 stature of tree, and is perennial." He adds that the fruit 

 contains no seed, though he qualifies the latter statement 

 by remarking that he has heard of fully developed seeds 

 occasionally appearing in the cultivated fruit " when left to 

 ripen on the tree," and further that wild varieties of the 

 banana which propagate themselves by seed are reported 

 to be found in some parts of Eastern Asia. A high 

 botanical authority includes in his description of the species 

 indigenous to Queensland, " Fruit oblong, succulent, inde- 

 hiscent ; seed numerous ; tree-like herbs. Herbs with 

 perennial rhizome." 



There are three if not more species of bananas native to 

 Queensland, and they form a conspicuous feature of the 

 jungle. With remarkable rapidity one of the species shoots 

 up a ruddy symmetrical, slightly tapering stem smooth and 

 polished where the old leaf-sheaths have been shed to a 

 height of 20 and 30 feet, producing leaves 1 5 feet long and 

 2 feet broad, small and crude flowers, and bunches of 

 dwarf fruit containing little but shot-like seeds. The energy 

 of these plants seems to be concentrated in the production 

 of an elegant and proud form, the fruit being a mere after- 

 thought. But the effect of the broad pale green leaves, 

 even when frayed and ragged at the edges, in and among 



