PLANTAIN AND BANANA. 57 



" Not trees" replied his father, " although they 

 are twenty or thirty feet high." 



"But in pictures, papa, they look something 

 like palms, and I fancied that they were trees 

 like them." 



" They are so far from being trees, that they 

 have no true stem : the enormous leaves sheath- 

 ing round each other form a kind of spurious stem, 

 of great size, tapering as it ascends, and in the 

 centre of which rises a spathe of flowers, followed 

 by clusters of fruit." 



" Then they are something like crocuses in 

 having no stem ; but they are better off than 

 crocuses, in bearing fruit. What sort of fruit 

 is it?" 



" In appearance I am told that the unripe 

 plantain is exceedingly like a large cucumber." 



" How ugly !" said Mary. " Fancy a cluster of 

 cucumbers !" 



" If they are not very pretty to look at, plan- 

 tains and bananas are very wholesome, and some 

 of them very delicious as food. The plantain * is 

 the coarser kind preferred by the natives, and 

 cooked before it is ripe as a vegetable, or eaten 



* Musa paradisiaca. 



