322 Vegetables of Ceylon. 
it is often made use of. The tamarind tree renders the air 
beneatii its shade so unwholesome, that it is a general order 
with the troops, never to allow horses to be picketed there. 
This noble tree expands its branches so widely, that assemblies 
for religious and other purposes have been held under its 
shade, secure from the influence of the sun. The fruit is ex- 
tremely refreshing, and very elFicacious in fevers and dysen- 
teries. 
The plantain is a small tree with wood of a soft nature. 
The leaves are very broad, long, and green. As soon as this 
tree has borne fruit, the trunk dies, and a new one springs 
up through it from the root. The fruit grows at the top of 
the tree in bunches, resembling in shape our hogs’ puddings, 
from six to twelve inches long, and from ten to twenty in a 
bunch. It is covered with a coat of a lemon colour, which 
is easily peeled off ; the inside when ripe is of a white or 
yellowish colour. It has a pleasant flavour, and no quantity 
eaten of it has been foorfd to injure the stomach. When 
fried it is delicious, in appearance like fritters, and in taste 
resembling pancakes. The size of this fruit varies as well as its 
colour, which is sometimes a beautiful verniilliom 
Ceylon produces two species of the bread-fruit tree. One 
species, the jacka^ or jack-fruit, grows upon a tree of a very 
large size, which spreads out its branches around like our chesnut. 
This fruit is of a very extraordinary appearance, growing to 
the thickness of a man’s waist. It does not, like other fruits, 
spring from the branches, but issues from the body of the 
tree itself, or immediately from the root ; the latter is pre- 
ferred. Nothing can exceed the grotesque appearance of the 
body of tlie'' tree when it is stuck all over with these im- 
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