Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/81

 babies, and, the Moslems say, was the gift of Allah to the Prophet in his old age when he lost his teeth. The trees bear fruit but once, and then are followed by others from the same root. The useful bamboo is a tree-like plant with a jointed stem, producing branches with willow-shaped leaves, which wave in the wind, giving an elegant feathery appearance. So rapid is its growth, sometimes two feet in a single day, that the plant attains its height of sixty to seventy feet in a few months. It is said to have seven admirable qualities—strength, lightness, roundness, straightness, smoothness, hollowness and divisibility. The short succulent shoots are served on the table like asparagus, pickled or candied. According to the Chinese proverb, the grains are "more abundant when rice fails." The stems furnish bottles, buckets, baskets, fishing-rods, posts, bridges, walls, floors, roofs, and even the string that lashes together rafter and beam of the common native house in Indo-China.

Under the stimulating sunshine of the tropics a profusion of rare shrubs and some of the most beautiful flowers reward slight labor with a rapidity of growth and bloom unknown in colder regions. Roses of one sort or another are perennial. Bright geraniums, brilliant lilies and numberless plants indigenous to the country are in great demand and cultivated extensively for domestic or religious uses. There are seven