THE TRAVELLER'S TREE. 91 



have peaches, guavas, Chinese guavas, libdsy or loquat, pine- 

 apples, mulberries, pomegranates, grapes, and Cape gooseberries. 

 Bananas are most plentiful, and of several varieties ; the 

 largest are called ontsy, and are more than a foot long. 

 The trees attain a great size on the coast, and there are few 

 more beautiful sights than a grove of these, with their smooth 

 shining green stems eight or ten inches in diameter, and the 

 canopy of graceful leaves twenty or thirty feet overhead. In 

 some provinces a fine cloth is made from the fibres of the 

 banana ; the green succulent stems are also used as food for 

 cattle, and from their containing a great deal of water they 

 are used to put out fires. Figs and quinces have been grown to 

 some small extent, and in the neighbourhood of the woods wild 

 raspberries, very large and fine, are found in great abundance. 

 Besides the foregoing, there is a considerable variety of wild 

 berries and other fruits, which are esteemed by the people, 

 although most of them are not much cared for by Europeans. 



The most striking and characteristic tree of Madagascar is 

 doubtless the traveller's tree (Urania speciosa), which is so 

 plentiful in the island, and gives quite a unique character to 

 the scenery of the maritime plains and the lower slopes of 

 the outer belt of forest. 



This tree belongs to the order Musacece, although in some 

 points its structure resembles the palms rather than the plan- 

 tains. It is immediately recognised as strikingly distinct 

 from all other trees, even from the elegant palms, by its graceful 

 crown of broad and light-green banana-like leaves, arranged, 

 not as in almost every other tree and plant, around the 

 stem, but at the top of its trunk, in the shape of a fan. The 

 leaves are from twenty to thirty in number, and from eight 

 to ten feet long by a foot and a half broad. They very 

 closely resemble those of the banana, and when unbroken by 

 the wind have a very striking and beautiful appearance. The 

 trunk varies very much in height, according to the situation 

 of the tree. On the coast plains, where, with the pandanus, 

 it is the dominant form of vegetation and has plenty of room, 

 its average height is from fifteen to twenty feet to the base 

 of the leaf-stalks ; but in the forest, where it has a crowd of 

 rivals in obtaining light and air, it shoots up to heights of 



