The form of the trunk also varies greatly; sometimes it is extremely short, as in Chamæropshumilis; and sometimes, as in the ratans, assumes a bush-rope appearance. In some species it is smooth and unarmed, in others rugged or bristling with spines. In the American Yriarteas it rests upon a number of roots rising above the ground. Thus the Y. exorrhiza, frequently stands upon a dozen or more supports, embracing a circumference of twenty feet; and the Y. ventricosa is still more curious, as the spindle-shaped trunk, which at both ends is scarce a foot thick, swells in the middle to a threefold diameter, and, from its convenient form, is frequently used by the Indians for the construction of their canoes.
The form and colour of the fruits is also extremely various. What a difference between the large double nuts of the Lodoicea and the date—between the egg-shaped fruits of the Mauritia, whose scaly rind gives them the appearance of fir-cones, and the gold and purple peaches of the Pirijao, hanging in colossal clusters of sixty or eighty from the summit of the majestic trunk.
The family of the ferns is spread over the whole earth, but chiefly abounds in the vicinity of the tropics. Most of these plants love the shady and damp ground of the primitive forest, others attach themselves with their roots to rocks or trees. In the equatorial regions several of their species attain arboreal dimensions, with stems from twelve to thirty feet high and extensive crowns of large fronds, imitating the stately tufts of palms. But they do not possess the noble elegance of these kings of the vegetable world; and their stems, of a sombre brown colour, are rather an image of decrepid old age than of the youthful vigour which we admire in the growth of the palms. They do not seem to love the highest temperature of the equator, but rather the milder climate of the mountainous regions near the tropics. Here they frequently stand singly in the thicket, particularly where a waterfall impregnates the air with moisture, or on the borders of sources and ponds. No parasites settle upon them, no bird constructs its nest among their fronds, no quadruped burrows in the mouldy ground where they take root, even the ants disdain to build on their sapless stems, and thus they make the impression of friendless aliens in a convivial group.
ARECA PALM.
THE BANANA AND THE PLANTAIN.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CHIEF ESCULENT PLANTS OF THE TORRID ZONE.
Rice—Various Aspect of the Rice-fields at different Seasons—The Rice-Bird—Maize—First imported from America by Columbus—Its enormous Productiveness—Its wide zone of Cultivation—Millet, Dhourra—The Bread-Fruit Tree—The Bananas—Their ancient Cultivation—Avaca or Manilla Hemp—Humboldt’s Remarks on the Banana—The Traveller’s Tree of Madagascar—The Cassava Root—Tapioca—Yams—Batatas—Arrowroot—Taro—Tropical Fruit Trees—The Chirimoya—The Litchi—The Mangosteen—The Mango.