some parts are used medicinally iii cases 

 of dropsy, and as au external application 

 to burns and ulcers. 



The Musas are likewise remarkable for 

 the quantity of fibrous tissue pervading 

 their leafstalks, and which is capable of 

 bebig employed for weaving purposes, for 

 making paper, etc. One species, M. text ills, 

 is especially valuable on this account. It 

 furnishes what is known as Manilla Hemp, 

 the plant being cultivated in the Philippine 

 Islands for the sake of its fibre, the finer 

 kinds of which are woven into beautiful 

 shawls, and the coarser employed in the 

 manufacture of cordage for ships, &c. A 

 very large supplyof fibre, adapted for paper- 

 making and other purposes, could be ob- 

 tained at comparatively little cost from 

 this and various species of Plantain. 



Several species are cultivated in hot- 

 houses in this country for their foliage or 

 for their fruit. M. chinensis, also called Ca- 

 vendishii, a dwarf species from China, pro- 

 duces fruit abundantly in our hothouses. 

 M. Ensete is a native of Abyssinia, where it 

 was discovered by the traveller Bruce. Its 

 fruit is dry and inedible, containing a few 

 large stony seeds ; but the base of the 

 flower-stalk is cooked and eaten by the 

 natives. A plant of this species was for 

 many years one of the chief ornaments in 

 the palm-house at Kew, its leaves being 

 upwards of twenty feet long, and traversed 

 by a stout vivid red rib, while the trunk 

 attained a circumference of nine feei in 

 threeyears. It was remarked by Bruce,that 

 on ancient Egyptian sculptures representa- 

 tions of Isis with ears of corn, and the 

 foliage of the Banana occur, and sometimes 

 carvings are met with showing the hippo- 

 potamus destroying the Banana. Now the 

 true Banana is not a native of Egypt ; hence 

 Bruce surmised that the Abyssinian Ensete 

 was intended. The hippopotamus typifies 

 the Nile, the inundations of which have 

 gone so far as to destroy not only the wheat, 

 but also the Ensete which was to supply 

 its place. [M. T.M.] 



MTJSADA. An Indian name for Strychnos 

 nux-vomica. 



MPSAXGA. The name applied to a tree 

 of western tropical Africa, which consti- 

 tutes a genus of Artocarpacece. It is nearly 

 allied in habit and other characters to Ce- 

 cropia, but its male flowers have each only 

 one stamen, in place of two. The fruit is 

 covered by the hardened perianth, and con- 

 tains a sinerle seed, which is eaten by the 

 natives of Guinea. [31. T. M.] 



MUSCADIER. (Fr.) Myristica. 



MCSCAIRE. (Fr.) Moscharia. 



MUSCALES. The group or alliance of 

 Acrogens, comprising the Mosses : which 

 see ; see also Musci. 



MUSCARDINE. A disease to which silk- 

 worms are subject, which derives its name 

 from a little pastille to which the dead 

 silkworms bear some resemblance. The 

 malady is due to the agency of a mould, 

 Botrytis Bassiana, which commences its 



growth in the intestines, and gradually 

 penetrates every part of the insect till 

 life is destroyed. It is not confined to the 

 larva, the pupa sometimes being affected 

 after the cocoon is spun. Where a silk- 

 worm establishment is attacked by this 

 formidable parasite, nothing except the 

 greatest care and cleanliness will remove 

 it. Every particle of dung, every withered 

 leaf, every dead insect, must be carefully 

 removed, and the walls washed with a 

 solution of quicklime, or some other sub- 

 stance which may destroy the spores. It 

 is of consequence, also, to avoid as much 

 as possible all intercourse with other esta- 

 blishments m which disease exists. A few 

 spores scattered over the leaves, and con- 

 sumed by the caterpillars, will be sufficient 

 to keep up the evil. [M. J. B.] 



MUSCARI. Bulbous plants, with narrow 

 leaves, and flowers in racemes at the end 

 of a simple stalk, belonging to the hya- 

 cinth tribe of LiKacem, and natives of 

 middle Europe and the Mediterranean re- 

 gion. The genus is known by the flowers 

 having a tubular almost globose perianth, 

 constricted at its very shortly six-toothed 

 mouth ; six stamens with very short slen- 

 der filaments inserted into the perianth 

 tube ; and a short straight style, bearing 

 a three-cornered papillose stigma. Its 

 membranous acutely triquetrous three- 

 celled capsules contain about two black 

 seeds in each cell. [A. S.] 



MTJSCARIFORM. Formed like a brush 

 or broom ; that is to say, furnished with 

 long hairs towards one end of a slender 

 body, as the style and stigma of many 

 composites. 



MUSCARIUM. A collection of corym- 

 bose branches, such as are found in many 

 Asters. 



MUSCATEL. A choice kind of grape, 

 dried on the vine, for fine table raisins. 



MUSCI. An important tribe of crypto- 

 gams, comprising the Mosses proper,which 

 stand apart from other cryptogams by 

 their peculiar habit and fruit, with a very 

 few exceptions only. Whether the axis is 

 elongated or reduced to a mere point, the 

 more or less pointed and lanceolate imbri- 

 cated or distichous leaves, and ovate fruit 

 opening horizontally by the separation of 

 a terminal lid, and bearing one or more 

 whorls of tooth-like processes at the ori- 

 fice, in far the greater number, are at 

 once distinctive. In a few exceptional 

 cases the leaves are obtuse, the lid does 

 not separate, the capsule opens by vertical 

 valvular lobes, and the orifice is naked ; yet 

 even in these, the general habit and the 

 nature of the fruit preclude all possibility 

 of mistake. 



The leaves of Mosses are destitute of sto- 

 mates, but these organs are found not un- 

 frequently upon the capsules. Their colour 

 is mostly preen, though occasionally nearly 

 white from the absence of endochrome in 

 the outer cells. In a few instances the 

 walls of the cells communicate with each 



