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DOMESTIC BOTANY. 



There are many varieties which are very beautiful summer 

 decorative plants, and much used in what is termed subtropical 

 gardening. Canna edulis is cultivated in the West Indies, 

 its fleshy rhizomes yielding a large quantity of starch, which 

 is used for food known as " Tous les mois." 



The Plantain and Banana Family. 



(MUSACE^.) 



Simple palmids or long sheathing phyllocorms, sometimes 

 csespitose perennial-leaved rhizocorms. Leaves generally 

 large, ovate-lanceolate, or linear elliptical, with sheathing 

 footstalks and parallel veins diverging from the midrib. 

 Inflorescence spathaceous; spathe persistpnt, with exserted, 

 bisexual flowers ; or deciduous, with male and female 

 flowers in separate clusters, on a lengthening spadix. Fruit 

 a 3-valved capsule ; or succulent as in the Banana. 



This beautiful and useful family is composed of 20 

 to 30 species, chiefly natives of the tropics. At the Cape of 

 Good Hope the family is represented by the genus Strelitzia. 

 The species of most importance to man are those producing 

 the Plantain and Banana. 



Plantain (Musa paradisiaca) and Banana {M. sapientum). 

 These are generally supposed to be two distinct species, but 

 their varieties seem to defy any botanical distinction ; 

 the spadix is erect, but more generally it is pendulous. As 

 food plants they have been cultivated in all ages through- 

 out the tropics, and are now so thoroughly universal, that it is 

 extremely diflicult to assign any place as their native habitat. 

 They produces food for millions of people, far surpassing in 

 quantity that of any other plant in proportion to the space it 

 occupies. It has been calculated that the same area required 

 to yield 33 lbs. of wheat, or 99 lbs. of potatoes, wiU produce 

 4400 lbs. of plantains. 



The young fruit surrounds the flower-stalk or spadix in 



