The banana tree is one of the most striking illustrations of tropical fertility and exuberance. A plant, which in a northern climate, would require many years to gain strength and size, is there the production of ten or twelve months. The native of the South plants a few grains, taken from an old tree, in a moist and sandy soil, along some river or lake; they develop with the greatest rapidity, and at the end of ten months the first crop may be gathered, though the cluster and bananas are yet small; but the following year one cluster alone will weigh some sixty or more pounds. Even in the South they are always cut down when green, as they lose much of their flavor when left to ripen or soften on the tree.
The trunk of the tree, if it may be so called, and which grows to a hight of some fifteen feet, is formed only by the fleshy part of the large leaves, some of which attain a length of eighteen feet, and are two and a half feet in width. While from an upper sprout you perceive the large yellow flowers, or already formed fruits, you see underneath a cluster, which is bending the tree by its weight.
The plantain tree is much the same as the banana, with the difference, however, that its fruit cannot be eaten raw, like the banana's, and that it is much larger in size. Almost every portion of the banana tree is useful. First of all, the nutritious fruit. The plantains when green and hard, are boiled in water or with meat like our potatoes, or they are cut in slices and fried in fat, when they are soft and ripe. There is a singularity about the boiled plaintain, worthy of being mentioned. Pork especially, and other meats are so exceedingly fat in the tropics that they would be most disgusting or even impossible to eat with either bread or potatoes, but the plaintain seems to neutralize or absorb all the greasy substance, and the fattest meat is thus eaten by natives and foreigners without the least inconvenience.
Ripe bananas are mashed into a paste, of which the natives bake a sort of bread, which is very nourishing, though somewhat heavy. This paste, which contains much starch, can be dried, and thus kept for a length of time, which is often of great service to mariners. The young sprouts are used and prepared like vegetables, and the fibrous parts of the stalks of the majestic leaves are used like manilla for ropes and coarse cloth.
The utility of the leaves is a theme rich enough to fill a volume; they are used to cover the huts, for table-cloths and napkins, or wrapping paper. The dough of bread, instead of being put in a pan, into the oven, is spread on a piece of plantain leaf; it will neither crisp nor adhere to the bread when taken out. The Indians of America carry all their products, such as maize, sugar, coffee, etc., in bags made of this leaf, which they know how to arrange so well, that they transport an "arroba," or twenty-five pounds any distance without a single grain escaping, and without any appliance other than a liana or creeper to tie it up with. As to the medicinal qualities of the leaves, they are numerous. Indeed, a book has been written upon them. I speak, however, from my own experience. The young, yet unrolled leaves are superior to any salve or ointment. If applied to an inflamed part of the body, the effect is soothing and cooling, or if applied to a wound or ulcer, they excite a proper healthy action, and afterwards completely heal the wound. Decoctions made of the leaves are used among the natives for various diseases.
Since the beginning of the world this plant has ranked among the first in the Flora of Asia. The Christians of the orient look upon it as the tree of Paradise which bore the forbidden fruit, and they think its leaves furnished the first covering to our original parents. According to other historians, the Adam's fig was the plant, which the messengers brought from the promised land to Moses, who had sent them out to reconnoitre. "It is under the shade of the musa sapientium, that," as recorded by Pliny, "the learned Indians seated themselves to meditate over the vicissitudes of life, and to talk over different philosophic subjects, and the fruit of this tree was their only food." The Oriental Christians, up to the present date, regard the banana almost with reverence; their active fancy beholds in its center, if a cut is made transverse, the image of the cross, and they consider it a crime to use a knife in cutting the fruit.
In the holy language of the Hindoo, the Sanscrit, the Adam's fig is called "modsha," whence doubtless, the word "musa" is derived. It is generally believed that the plant came from India to Egypt in the seventh century; it still forms a most important article of commerce in the markets of Cairo and Alexandria. In the year 1516, the banana was brought to the West Indian Islands by a monk, since which time it has rapidly spread over the tropics of America, and is found to the twenty-fifth degree north and south of the equator. It is equally indispensable and is appreciated by the immigrant and by the native as a beautifier of the landscape; affording shelter from the sun and rain, and giving bread to the children; for if every other crop should fail, the hungry native looks up to the banana tree, like a merchant to his well-filled storehouse.