ESCULENT MUSACE.E. 169 



The Ml sac3{3e are not only useful to man by their mealy, 

 wholesome, and agreeable fruits, but also by the fibres of their 

 long leaf-stalks. Some species furnish filaments for the finest 

 muslin, and the coarse fibres of the Musa textilis, known in 

 trade under the name of Manilla hemp, serve for the prepa- 

 ration of very durable cordage. 



To the same family of plants belongs also the traveller-tree 

 of Madagascar {Ravenala speciosa), one of those wonderful 

 sources of refreshment which Nature has provided for the thirsty 

 wanderer in the wilderness. The foot-stalks of the elliptical, 

 alternate leaves embrace the trunk with broad sheathes, in which 

 the dew trickling from their surface is collected. Thus the 

 ravenala, the hollow baobab, the pitcher-plant, and the juicy 

 cactuses, all answer a similar purpose, and it is impossible to 

 say which of them is most to be admired. 



Life and death are strangely blended in the Cassava or Man- 

 dioca root {Jatropha Manihot) ; the juice a rapidly destructive 

 poison, the meal a nutritious and agreeable food, which, in tro- 

 pical America, and chiefly in Brazil, forms a great part of the 

 people's sustenance. The height to which the cassava attains 

 varies from four to six feet : it rises by a slender, woody, 

 knotted stalk, furnished with alternate palmated leaves, and 

 springs from a woody root, the slender collateral fibres of which 

 swell into those farinaceous parsnip-like masses, for which alone 

 the plant is cultivated. It requires a dry soil, and is not 

 found at a greater elevation than 2,000 feet above the level 

 of the sea. It is propagated by cuttings, which very quickly 

 take root, and in about eight months from the time of their 

 being planted, the tubers will generally be in a fit state to 

 be collected ; they may, however, be left in the groimd for 

 many months without sustaining any injury. The usual mode 

 of preparing the cassava is to grind the roots after peeling 

 off the dark-coloured rind, to draw out the poisonous juice, 

 and finally to bake the meal into thin cakes on a hot iron 

 hearth. Fortunately the deleterious principle is so volatile as 

 to be entirely dissipated by exposure to heat; for when the root 

 has been cut into small pieces, and exposed during some hours 

 to the direct rays of the sun, cattle may be fed on it with per- 

 fect safety. If the recently extracted juice be drunk by cattle 

 or poultry, the animals soon die in convulsions ; bui if this same 



