85 
[ Eep. ISio. 564. ] 
:the most arid soils, as nature has furnished them with strong aerial roots, 
which descend from the stem, and bury themselves in the sandy or stony 
■surfaces, on which they propagate themselves. These roots serve, at the 
same time, as so many stays or braces, to prevent the stems being blown 
about by the unruly winds, and as so many mouths or tubes, to suck or 
pump up nutriment from the unwilling soil. They also abound on the 
■Coralline islands of the Pacific ocean, where the surface is so bare that few 
other plants will grow, except the Cocoa-nut palm. They are very com¬ 
mon in the Indian archipelago, and in most tropical islands of the Old 
World ; but are rare in America. The Pandamis odoratissimus grows in 
all soils and situatio7is, 'm the warmest parts of Asia, and is there much 
employed for hedges. Its flowers ryg fragrant and edible ; the leaves, 3 
to 5 feet long, are composed of longitudinal tough useful fibres; the roots 
-also are composed of tough useful fibres, and yet are so soft and spongy, 
as to serve for corks. The fruit of several species is an article of food ; the 
branches, being of a soft spongy nature, and juicy, when cut into small 
pieces serve for fodder for cattle. But the fibrous leaves themselves are 
the most important products of the species of Pandamis; many of them are 
beautifully white and glossy, and are handsomely wrought into elegant 
mats and baskets of a great variety of patterns and colors. The entire 
leaves henc4 furnish the cheapest materials, for the simplest manufactures 
of baling and bagging, mats and baskets, ha;ts and bonnets; and the prop¬ 
agation therefore of these plants, on the most arid soils, will not merely 
cover the most steril districts with a dense population of small cultivators, 
'but will also augment the number of an innocent, independent, and rural 
people, by supplying their families, their farms, and their females, with real¬ 
ly domestic manufactures. 
§ 4. Geogra'phy of the Banana tribe, and general remarks. 
The species are natives of the Tropics, of the Cape of Good Hope, of the 
islands of its southeast coast, and of Japan; and different species of Bananas 
are cultivated up to 33 or 34 degrees north latitude on Europe; and one 
species, with germinable seeds, is now acclimated in Louisiana. In their 
habits of growth, they generally prefer humid or marshy soils ; several 
prefer shaded gullies and moist woods, and others the wettest portions of 
heavy forests, while one also grows on the highest mountains. The spe- 
nies of Musa, which bear the great clusters of fruits called Bananas and 
Plaintains, have been pronounced the greatest blessing of God to man. 
The object of the present brief notice is to attract attention to one or more 
species not valuable for their fruit, nor yet for their gigantic leaves, with 
- parallel veins diverging from the midrib to the margin ; but it is to invite 
special attention to the enormous petioles or footstalks, of which their 
columnar stems are composed, both on account of the foliaceous fibres 
they yield, and their value for domestic manufactures. 
§ 5. Geograrphy of the Pahn tribes, and general remarks. 
The species of this noble family of plants extend from the equator in 
the southern hemisphere as far as 3S° in New Zealand, and in the north¬ 
ern hemisphere, as far as 34° 36' in the United States, and even to 4^, 
and 44° in Europe. Their habits of growth are as diversified as are their prod- 
