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SELECT PLANTS READILY ELIGIBLE 



vibrio-like organism. Countries like ours, happily free of these 

 pests, can thus rear healthy silk-ova at a high premium for 

 exportation. 



The White Mulberry-tree with others, offering food to the silk- 

 worms, should be planted copiously everywhere for hedges or 

 copses. 



Morus celtidifolia, Humboldt. 



From Peru to Mexico, ascending to 7000 feet. The fruit 

 also of this Mulberry-tree is edible. M. insignis, Planchon, 

 from New Granada, is a similar species. 



Morus nigra, Linne.* 



The Black Mulberry-tree. South Russia and Persia. Highly 

 valuable for its pleasant refreshing fruits. It is a tree of 

 longevity, instances being on record of its having lived through 

 several centuries. It is also very hardy. The leaves also of 

 this species afford food for the ordinary silk-moth. The tree 

 occurs usually unisexual. M. atropurpurea, Roxb., from 

 Cochin-China, is an allied tree. The cylindrical fruit-spike 

 attains a length of two inches. 



Morus rubra, Linne. 



The Red Mulberry-tree of North America is the largest of 

 the genus, attaining a height of 70 feet; it produces a strong 

 and compact timber. 



Musa Cavendishii, Lambert. {Musa regia, Rumph; Musa 

 Chinensis, Sweet; Musa nana, Loureiro.) 

 The Chinese Banana. A comparatively dwarf species^ the 

 stem attaining only a height of about five or six feet. Its 

 robust and dwarf habit render it particularly fit for exposed 

 localities, and this is one of the reasons why it is so exten- 

 sively cultivated in the South Sea Islands. The yield of fruit 

 is profuse (as much as 200 to 300 fruits in a spike), and the 

 flavour excellent. This as well as M. sapientum and M. 

 paradisiaca ripen still their fruits in Madeii'a and Florida. 



Musa Ensete, Gmelin. 



Bruce's Banana. From Sofala to Abyssinia, in mountain 

 regions. This magnificent plant attains a height of thirty 

 feet, the leaves occasionally reaching to the length of twenty 

 feet, with a width of thi'ee feet, being perhaps the largest in 

 the whole empire of plants, exceeding those of Strelitzia and 

 Ravenala, and surpassing even in quadrate measurement those 

 of the grand water-plant Victoria Regia, while excelling in 

 comparative cii'cumference also the largest compound frond 

 of Angiopteris evecta, or divided leaf of Godwinia Gigas, 

 though the compound leaves of some palms are still larger. 

 The inner part of the stem and the young spike of the Ensete 

 can be boiled to serve as a table esculent, but the fruit is- 



