Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/186

Rh 170 P L A P L A duke of Britanny. Edward I. had for his sons-in-law Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, the duke of Brabant, and the earl of Holland. A daughter of Edward II. married a duke of Gueldres. But &quot; the aspiring blood of Lancaster &quot; spread itself over Europe by alliances with Castile and Portugal, Navarre and Denmark, Bavaria and other foreign states. It has reigned in Portugal to the present day, and it continued to reign in Spain till the end of the 17th century. (,T. OA.) PLANTAIN (Lat. ]&amp;gt;lanfago), a name given to plants with broad palm-like leaves. This is the case with certain species of I lantago, Alismn, and Musn, to all of which the term is popularly applied. Of the Plantarjo little need be said here, the species being for the most part mere weeds, though one species, P. lanceolata, is eaten by cattle, and the seeds of another, P. major, are collected for the food of birds. Of far greater general importance is the genus J/s&amp;lt;7, to which belong the Plantain, and the BANANA (q.v.}. These are gigantic herbs, now diffused by cultiva tion throughout the tropics of both hemispheres, and sending up from a short thick underground stem shoots with a number of very large leaves whose long, thick leaf-stalks are wrapped one round another. The blades are usually oblong- obtuse, like the blade of an oar, with a very thick midrib from which diverge on each side numerous pa rallel densely arranged secondary ribs. The flowers are borne in huge pendulous spikes pro vided with large boat- shaped, often coloured, bracts, in whose axils the - &amp;lt;siSisiiisiiSi whorls of flowers are pro duced ; the lower ones Uusa sapuntum. are usually female or hermaphrodite, those at the apex of the spike are male only. These flowers consist of a perianth of six divisions partly united below, slightly two-lipped above, and enclosing five perfect and one imperfect stamen. The ovary is inferior and three-celled ripening into a long ob long fruit filled with spongy pulp, in which the numerous seeds are embedded. The accumulation of starch and sugar in this pulp renders the fruit of vast importance as an article of diet in the tropics. Coren winder, cited by Paw, says that, while starchy matter forms more than 19 per cent, of the ripe fruit there is also nearly 5 per cent, of nitrogen ous matter, about double that of the potato. The plant requires but little attention, and the produce from a rela tively small area is enormous ; hence it is one of the most valuable of all food-plants. After fruiting, the stem dies down, but provision for new growth is made by the pro duction from the underground stock of numerous offsets. The number of varieties is very great, a circumstance which in itself testifies to the long period during which the plant has been cultivated. It is also the more remarkable in that perfect seeds are comparatively rarely produced, the inference being that the different forms have arisen from bud -variations or &quot;sports.&quot; In spite of the vast number of varieties grown in the tropics of both hemispheres varieties mostly dependent on diversities in the size, form, and flavour of the fruit the general opinion among botanists is that they have all sprung from one species, the Mma sapient-urn of Brown. Were it otherwise, it is presumed that the varieties found in America would be different from the Asiatic ones, and these again from those found in the South Sea Islands, itc.; but, as a matter of fact, there are no geographic limitations, the same varieties being found in different quarters of the globe. The varieties are arranged under two heads by Desvaux according to the size of their fruit the bananas, with fruit 7-15 inches in length, and the fig bananas, with fruit from 1-6 inches long; but these variations are not constant, and Schomburgk has recorded a case in which a spike of the fig banana bore numerous fruits proper to that variety, and in addition a large number of fruits like those of the Chinese dwarf -plantain, Musa r/t inensis, the Cavendish banana of gardens a case analogous to, but even more remarkable than, the not infrequent occurrence of peaches and nectarines on the same branch. The plantain and the banana are sometimes spoken of as distinct. The former has a green stem and yellow angular fruit not fit for eating till cooked. The banana (M. sapientum) has the stem marked with purple spots, and a shorter more cylindric fruit which may be eaten without cooking, but the two run one into the other so that no absolute distinction can be drawn between them. The species have been found in a wild state in Chittagong and Khasia, in the Philippine Islands, in Siam, and in Ceylon, but nowhere truly wild on the American continent. Throughout tropical and subtropical Asia the plant has numerous and diverse native names; and it was mentioned by old Greek and Latin authors. On the other hand, there are no native names for the plant in Mexico, Peru, or Brazil. From such considerations as these Alphonse de Candolle, in his Origine des Plantes Cultivees, sums up the evidence by asserting the Asiatic origin of the plantain and its early introduction into America by the Spaniards or Portuguese. If it should turn out that the banana or the plantain existed in America before the discovery of that continent, then M. de Candolle would attribute that circumstance to some fortuitous introduction at no very remote date rather than to the simultaneous existence of the banana as an indigenous plant in both hemispheres. It is not only for their fruit that these plants are valuable. The leaves are used for thatching, and the abundant fibre they contain forms a good substitute for hemp. Musa textilis is of special value from this point of view. The Abyssinian banana, ^f. Ensete, has dry capsular fruit, and very handsome foliage. PLANTAIN-EATER. See TOURAKOO. PLANTIN, CHRISTOPHE (1514-1589), born in a vil lage near Tours (probably Saint-Avertin) in 1514, learned book-binding and book-selling at Caen, and, having mar ried in that town, settled in 1549 as bookbinder in Antwerp, then the principal commercial town of the Netherlands, where he was soon known as the first in his profession. A bad wound in the arm, which unfitted him for this occupation, seems to have been the cause that first led him (about 1555) to apply himself to typography. The first known book printed in his office was La Imtitii- tione di una fanciulln nt.it a nobilmente, by J. M. Bruto, with a French translation, and this was soon followed by many other works in French and Latin, which in point of execution rivalled the best printing of his time, while the masters in the art of engraving then flourishing in the Netherlands illustrated many of his editions. In 1562, Plantin himself being absent in Paris, his workmen printed an heretical pamphlet, which caused his movables to be seized and sold. It seems, however, that he recovered a great deal of the- money, and in 1563 he associated him self with some friends to carry on his business on a larger scale. Among them were two grand-nephews of Dan. Bomberg, who furnished him with the fine Hebrew types