540 
THE PRINCIPLES OF BOTANY. 
some lily worts offer the only resemblance. When such leaves 
acquire a large size they are frequently split into lateral 
ribands.” 
It would require a long study of a series of flowers to fully 
develope the nature of their anomalous types, but allowing 
for rudimentary development and suppression of parts on the 
one hand, and redundancy on the other, the most difficult 
genera from which are produced ginger and arrowroot are 
reduced to order. 
The natural orders are : 
Musacece — Stamens normally 6, by abortion 5. 
Marantacece — Stamens normally 3, of which 2 are 
abortive. 
Zingiber acece — Stamens normally 3, of which the 
central one only is fertile. 
1. Musacece. — To this order belong the Plantains and 
Bananas of the tropics, which, as says Dr. Pereira, “ form 
important and valuable articles of food to the inhabitants of 
many tropical regions; ‘but for plantains,’ says Dr. Wright, 
‘Jamaica would scarcely he habitable, as no species of provision 
could supply their place. Even flour or bread itself would 
he less able to support the laborious negro, so as to enable 
him to do his business, or to keep him in health.’ ” The fruit 
of the Banana is indeed called bread-fruit, and the fruits of 
Musa sapientum and Musa par adisiaca, and other plantains 
are partaken of, not as fruits only, but as common articles of 
food ; and so fertile are they that Humboldt calculated that 
33 lbs. of wheat and 99 lbs. of potatoes require the same 
space as that in which 4,000 lbs. of Bananas are grown. 
Truly, indeed, is this a paradisical state of things ; but it is 
sad to think that where so little work is required for sus- 
tenance, Satan is sure to find some mischief to be done by 
the idle hands. 
In these plants the immature fruit is employed for the 
production of starch ; but in the process of ripening this 
becomes changed, first into mucilage and then into sugar, 
so that it can be made either a vegetable food or a delicious 
fruit, according to circumstances. We have grown the Musa 
Cavendishii in the hot house, where it has ripened its fruit ; 
hut as grown at Kew and other large establishments the 
beauty of form and elegance of the foliage of the numerous 
species of Musads is their chief attraction. 
2. Marantacece. — Here we have a few genera possessing 
curiously formed flowers, but their interest centres in their 
rhizomata or underground stems. That of the Maranta 
