230 THE BREAD FRUIT TREE. 



tropical night, on such occasions these great leaves 

 have always struck us as objects full of grandeur and 

 sublimity, and we specially commend the study of 

 fine groups of these beautiful plants to the notice of 

 future travellers, and artists. 



The most superb leaf of this kind is probably that 

 of the Musa Ensete, or Wild Abyssinian Banana, now- 

 a-days a common ornament of our plant houses. * The 

 natural habitat of this plant is in the open glades of 

 the jungles of the Abyssinian highlands, where single 

 leaves have been found to measure thirteen or fourteen 

 feet in length, by three in breadth ; their singular 

 beauty, and freshness of colouring, set off by a central 

 rib of brilliant red, will doubtless be familiar to hor- 

 ticulturists; its fruit, however, is hardly edible; it is 

 therefore not one of the species which are cultivated 

 for food, such as the well-known Musa Sapientum, or 

 the larger or " plantain " species, the M. Paradisiaca. 



Another most striking example of a fruit tree whose 

 beautiful leaves cannot fail to attract the notice of 

 travellers in equatorial stations, wherever it is grown, 

 is that of the curious, and as yet comparatively little 

 known Bread Fruit tree (Artocarpus Incisa], the finely cut, 

 and highly ornamental foliage of which instantly catches 

 the eye, and forms a splendid contrast to the foliage of 

 groups of other trees seen growing in the surrounding 

 landscape. This great tree is an importation from the South 

 Sea Islands, where it was first described, we believe, by 

 the great circumnavigator Captain Cook, a little more 

 than a century ago. Its fruit, which is about the size 

 of a child's head, when properly cooked makes a very 



* This species is now so far acclimatized as to do well in the open 

 air during summer in Great Britain and throughout Central Europe. 



