Page:The fairy tales of science.djvu/272

232 In the present chapter we propose to consider some of the most striking productions of the vegetable kingdom. We shall not attempt to preserve any sort of order in our rapid review, but will jump from one country to another, and throw aside all the elaborate systems of classification that have been devised by botanists. We will promise to bring some wonderful plants before the reader's notice, but we will not bind ourselves to any scientific rules.

The imaginary plum-pudding tree naturally suggests the bread-fruit of the islands of the Pacific, that wonderful plant that bears a crop of penny rolls. The bread-fruit is a beautiful as well as a useful tree. Its trunk rises to a height of about forty feet, and when full grown is from a foot to fifteen inches in diameter. The branches come out in a horizontal manner, becoming shorter and shorter as they near the top. The leaves are of a rich green, are nearly two feet long, and deeply gashed or divided at the edges.

As for its marvellous fruit, we cannot do better than quote the words of Captain Dampier, who first described it in 1688. “The fruit,” says this celebrated navigator, “grows on the boughs like apples; it is as big as a penny loaf when wheat is at five shillings the bushel; it is of a round shape, and hath a thick tough rind. When the fruit is ripe it is yellow and soft, and the taste is sweet and pleasant. The natives use it for bread. They gather it when full