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Plantain   Listen
noun
Plantain  n.  (Bot.) Any plant of the genus Plantago, but especially the Plantago major, a low herb with broad spreading radical leaves, and slender spikes of minute flowers. It is a native of Europe, but now found near the abode of civilized man in nearly all parts of the world.
Indian plantain. (Bot.) See under Indian.
Mud plantain, a homely North American aquatic plant (Heteranthera reniformis), having broad, reniform leaves.
Rattlesnake plantain, an orchidaceous plant (Goodyera pubescens), with the leaves blotched and spotted with white.
Ribwort plantain. See Ribwort.
Robin's plantain, the Erigeron bellidifolium, a common daisylike plant of North America.
Water plantain, a plant of the genus Alisma, having acrid leaves, and formerly regarded as a specific against hydrophobia.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Plantain" Quotes from Famous Books



... the palm and plantain, hark, a Voice! Not such as would have been a lover's choice, In such an hour, to break the air so still; No dying night-breeze, harping o'er the hill, Striking the strings of nature, rock and tree, 420 Those best ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... he stood, perfectly silent, perfectly calm, gazing back at the Tiger with the look of a conqueror. Several long, heavy minutes passed. At length the villagers, peeping out from their hiding-places, looking between the broad plantain leaves or through the chinks of their wooden huts, beheld a miracle. They saw, to their amazement, the Tiger slink off, sullen and baffled, to the jungle, while the Stranger remained alone and unharmed in possession of the path. At first they scarcely dared to believe their eyes. It was only ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... done, the little old woman raked them out of the ashes with a stick, broke them open, sprinkled a bit of salt on them from the wonderful basket, and then handed one to each of the children, wrapped in a plantain leaf, so they should not burn their fingers. A piece of the eel was served to them in the same way, and Granny beamed with satisfaction as she watched her ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... eats, the company keep silence; and when he is full, they return fervent thanks to the gods who have conducted him safely through a complexity of dangers;—a grain of rice, falling from his lips, might have poisoned his dinner; a stain on his plantain-leaf might have turned his cake to stone. His left hand, condemned to vulgar and impolite offices, is not admitted to the honor of assisting at his repasts; to the right alone, consecrated by exemption from indecorous duties, belongs the distinction of conducting his happy grub to the heaven ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... been here before. I found the town not very extensive. The houses are built much in the same style as those at Kingston, in Jamaica, except that they have more garden ground. The streets are very sandy, but they are ornamented with a profusion of cocoa, plantain and banana trees, which afford a partial shade. It appeared to me that most of the people who inhabited Bridge Town maintained themselves by washing clothes. The women are well made and very indolent. ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... peculiarly adapted for the growth of every European and of many tropical productions. The orange, the fig, the citron, the pomegranate, the peach, the apple, the guava, the nectarine, the pear, and the loquette, grow side by side together. The plantain throws its broad leaves over the water, the vine encircles the cottages, and the market of Sydney is abundantly supplied with ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... Collenwood inquired closely into her ailments, ending with the suggestion, which she desired might be conveyed to her father, that Christie should rub her limbs with oil of swallows, and take a medicine compounded of plantain water and "powder of ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt

... and those tainted by the earth. Usumbara produces what is considered at Zanzibar a superior article; it is kneaded into little circular cakes four inches in diameter by half an inch deep: rolls of these cakes are neatly packed in plantain-leaves for exportation. The next in order of excellence is that grown in Uhiao: it is exported in leaf or in the form called kambari, roll-tobacco, a circle of coils each about an inch in diameter. The people of Khutu and Usagara mould the pounded and wetted material into discs like cheeses, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... to the Peloponnesus; the Cacalia Kleinia, the Dracaena, and other plants, which in their naked and tortuous trunks, in their succulent leaves, and their tint of bluish green, exhibit distinctive marks of the vegetation of Africa. It is in this zone that the date-tree, the plantain, the sugar-cane, the Indian fig, the Arum Colocasia, the root of which furnishes a nutritive fecula, the olive-tree, the fruit trees of Europe, the vine, and corn are cultivated. Corn is reaped from the end of March to the beginning of ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... It had one window, or rather a small frame in which a window might perhaps once have been, but which was now empty. The door was exceedingly low, and formed of rough boards, and the roof was covered with broad cocoa-nut and plantain leaves. But every part of it was in a state of the utmost decay. Moss and green matter grew in spots all over it. The woodwork was quite perforated with holes; the roof had nearly fallen in, and appeared to be prevented ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne

... accooses the paleface. The Western Injuns at least—for I ain't posted none on Eastern savages, the same bein' happily killed off prior to my time—the Western Injuns lays the bee, the wild turkey, an' that weed folks calls the 'plantain,' at the white man's door. They-all descends upon the Injun hand in hand. No, the Injun don't call the last-named veg'table a 'plantain;' he alloodes to it ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... two varieties of castor-oil plant in this country—one with a purple stem and bright red veins in the leaves, that is remarkably handsome. Also a wild plantain, with a crimson stem to the leaf; this does not grow to the height of the common plantain, but is simply a plume of leaves springing from the ground without ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... sucking the parts. Nitrate of silver may then be used and the ligatures removed. Alcohol, in any form, is an antidote to snake poison. For the stings of insects, apply aqua ammonia, fresh earth, raw onion, plantain, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... Phoenix Terrace," protested the whole party, "copied, in every point, the Huang Hua Lou. But what's essential is a faultless imitation. Now were we to begin to criticise minutely the couplet just cited, we would indeed find it to be, as compared with the line 'A book when it is made of plantain leaves,' still more elegant ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... Moses to lead their children to their promised land. These herb stalks above the snow, the corymbose heads of the yarrow, the spikes of the self-heal, the crosiers of the golden-rod, the panicles of the asters, the racemes of the Indian tobacco, the knotted threads of the blue vervain and the plantain, the miniature mandarin temples of the peppergrass—all these have shed, or are shedding, myriads of seeds to be silently sepulchred under the snow until earth's easter April mornings. The withered ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell

... captor and jailer. He knew what it was to wake from his noonday siesta and see the same great awful splash of sunlight striking the same old space of arid yard, where the empty tomato tin lay by the rotten plantain cast over by some nigger child. He knew what it was to lie and hear the flies buzzing and wonder what tune of the devil it was they were trying to imitate. He knew what it was to think of death with the impotent craving of a sick child ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... made by the other scouts were many orchids,—fringed-purple, ragged-fringed, yellow-fringed, and others. Also the Indian pink, the rattlesnake plantain, the pink snake-mouth, monkshood, bloodroot, pitcher plant, and numerous others that formed a wonderful exhibit which it would take a long time to do ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... mail in a canoe. The Guayas is a sluggish stream, its turbid waters starting from the slope of the Andes, and flowing through a low, level tract, covered with varied forms of vegetable life. Forests of the broad-leaved plantain and banana line the banks. The fruit is the most common article of food in equatorial America, and is eaten raw, roasted, baked, boiled, and fried. It grows on a succulent stem formed of sheath-like leaf-stalks rolled over one ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

... banana, plantain, breadfruit, and a sort of mango, found in Farther India, and which, at first disliked, becomes in time a great favorite with every one. Most singular of all was the fact that at two widely-separated points burst forth a ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis

... wood.* *mad A clote-leaf* he had laid under his hood, * burdock-leaf For sweat, and for to keep his head from heat. But it was joye for to see him sweat; His forehead dropped as a stillatory* *still Were full of plantain or of paritory.* *wallflower And when that he was come, he gan to cry, "God save," quoth he, "this jolly company. Fast have I pricked," quoth he, "for your sake, Because that I would you overtake, To riden in this merry company." His Yeoman was eke full of courtesy, And saide, "Sirs, now in ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... up to offer a nest of eggs just taken, and if she would speak to him would tell her about his exploits 'a-nisting,' about the bombarrel tit—a corruption apparently of nonpareil—and how he had put the yellow juice of the celandine on his 'wurrut' to cure it. Then they pulled the plantain leaves, those that grew by the path, to see which could draw out the longest 'cat-gut;' the sinews, as it were, of the plant stretching out like the strings ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies

... great need of resting the eyes occasionally, and the unhappy result of trying them to the utmost limit. The very moment that the eyeballs ache work should be suspended, no matter how necessary or urgent. Rose-water and plantain in equal parts makes a refreshing wash, and elderberry water is said to be good when there is a ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans

... in the village, Skag inquired about the white man. The native was serving him a curry with drift-white rice on plantain leaves. After that there was a sweetmeat made of curds of cream and honey, with the flavour and perfume of some altogether delectable flower. In good time the native replied that the white man's name was Cadman: that he was an American traveller and writer and ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost

... play on the musical instruments called dhungru and sarangi which have already been described. The Ratanpurias usually celebrate in an exaggerated style the praises of Gopal Rai, their mythical ancestor. One of his exploits was to sever with a single sword-stroke the stalk of a plantain inside which the Emperor of Delhi had caused a solid bar of iron to be placed. The Raipurias prefer a song, called Gujrigit, about curds and milk. They also sing various songs relating how a woman is ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... returned, I was stretched on some fresh plantain leaves, in a low smoky hut, with my faithful dog lying beside me, whining and licking my hands and face. On the rude joists that bound the rafters of the roof together, rested a light canoe with its paddles, and over against me, on the wall, hung some ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... pours along the plain, And Indus rolls to swell the Eastern Main, What awful scenes the curious mind delight! What wonders burst upon the dazzled sight! There giant palms lift high their tufted heads, The plantain wide his graceful foliage spreads; Wild in the woods the active monkey springs, The chattering parrot claps her painted wings; 'Mid tall bamboos lies hid the deadly snake, The tiger crouches in the tangled brake; ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... her flashed across the doctor's vision magically. The emerald wings, slashed with scarlet and yellow, wheeling and swooping about her head, there among the wild plantain. ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... Vultures, generally Where not protected. Eagles, generally All unprotected regions. Hawks, generally All unprotected regions. Crowned Pigeon, two species New Guinea. "Choncas" Locality unknown. Pitta East Indies. Magpie Europe. Touracou, or Plantain-Eater Africa. Velvet Birds Locality uncertain. "Grives" Locality uncertain. Mannikin South America. Green Parrot (now protected) India. "Dominos" (Sooty Tern) Tropical Coasts and Islands. Garnet Tanager ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... gone," mumbled the Monkey, and pelted him with the plantain-peel and balls of paper made out of the packets where the sugar had been. "Why did you stay so long? I got hungry, and could not wait ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke

... snake; vulgar prejudice thought that, by killing the snake, the poison would be less severe. He then put his lips to the wound, sucked it, and, taking her in his arms, carried her to the house. Before he reached it, her foot had swollen and burst. They applied an Indian remedy, a peculiar kind of plantain, which relieved her, but she was years before she perfectly recovered from the effects of the poison. Two children that were born during that time turned spotted, became sore and died; but her third child was strong and healthy, and is ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... doors, There was a noise of wings, till in short space The glowing banquet-room shone with wide-arched grace. A haunting music, sole perhaps and lone Supportress of the faery-roof, made moan Throughout, as fearful the whole charm might fade. Fresh carved cedar, mimicking a glade Of palm and plantain, met from either side, High in the midst, in honour of the bride: Two palms and then two plantains, and so on, From either side their stems branch'd one to one All down the aisled place; and beneath all There ran a stream of lamps straight on from ...
— Lamia • John Keats

... of these islands, I have mentioned hemp, although the article called Manila hemp must not be understood to be derived from the plant which produces the common hemp (Canabis), being obtained from a species of plantain (Musa textilis), called in the Philippines "abaca." This is a native of these islands, and was formerly believed to be found only on Mindanao; but this is not the case, for it is cultivated on the south part of Luzon and all the islands south of it. It grows on high ground, in rich ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various

... the hills the graceful plumes of the bamboo and the broad drooping leaves of the plantain, the wild banana, were interspersed with the vivid green leaves and fruit of the limes. Then came the big trees, from which the myriad creepers hung in graceful festoons. Here the undergrowth was scanty and the ground covered with tall bracken in the open glades, ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... increased than diminished; vegetation appeared most luxuriant, and the trees and shrubs blooming with various tints, spread a gaiety around; the clean and neat native houses were intermingled with the waving plumes of the cocoa-nut, the broad spreading plantain, and other trees peculiar to tropical climes. That magnificent tree the callophyllum inophyllum, or fifau of the natives, was not less abundant, displaying its shining, dark, green foliage, contrasted by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various

... through the drenched grass and the tall, dripping weeds, listening for the faint, foolish peeping of the wanderers. Some we found under piled fence rails, some under burdock leaves, some under nothing more protective than a plantain leaf. By ones and twos we collected them, half drowned yet shrilly remonstrant, and dropped them into the dry shed where they belonged. Then we returned to the house, very wet, feeling the kind of discouragement ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge

... as we came to the place where we intended to lodge, the Cimaroons, presently laying down their burdens, fell to cutting of forks or posts, and poles or rafters, and palmito boughs, or plantain leaves; and with great speed set up the number of six houses. For every of which, they first fastened deep into the ground, three or four great posts with forks: upon them, they laid one transom, ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols

... rude table was unique, for, mingled with shells from the beach and those of cocoanuts, both of which were used in place of cups, gourds, plantain-leaves, and wooden trays, appeared several dishes of cut glass and dainty china, generally cracked or chipped, and looking wofully out ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe

... particular anxiety upon this score, as George knew that wild fruits of several kinds were tolerably plentiful on the island, and about half an hour after they had started they were fortunate enough to fall in with a wild plantain, the fruit of which was just in the right condition for eating. No time was lost in securing a goodly bunch of this very nutritious fruit, upon which they feasted, as they went along, until their ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... the river still higher, your Commissioners learn that the district between Hobaboe Creek and 'Stricken Heuvel' contained, in 1829, eight sugar and five coffee and plantain estates, and now there remain but three in sugar and four partially cultivated with plantains by petty settlers: while the roads, with one or two exceptions, are in a state of utter abandonment. Here, as on the opposite bank of the river, hordes of squatters have located ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey

... few deserted huts, and a small plantain walk, but little taken care of; from which we could only collect three small bunches of plantains. After passing this place, we came to a deep gully that led towards a mountain, near a volcano; and, ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh

... rest on the side of the hill round which the Rhone sweeps in its main angle, opposite Martigny, and looking carefully across the valley to the ridge of the hill which rises above Martigny itself, then distant about four miles, a plantain seed-vessel about an inch long, and a withered head of a scabious half an inch broad, happened to be seen rising up, out of the grass near me, across the outline of the distant hill, so as seemingly to set themselves closely beside the large pines and chestnuts which fringed that distant ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... hearing that the prince had not returned, fell fainting on the ground, her limbs entirely deprived of strength, even as some mad tornado wind crushes the golden-colored plantain tree; and again, hearing that her son had become a recluse, deeply sighing and with increased sadness she thought, "Alas! those glossy locks turning to the right, each hair produced from each orifice, dark and pure, gracefully shining, sweeping ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... inhabitants of which all treated him kindly. He travelled through the beautiful plain of Cuttup, which contains five hundred little villages, situated near to each other, and surrounded by groves of trees, among which towered the plantain, the palm, and the cocoa-nut. The sun shone brightly upon the numerous hamlets; the oxen, cows, and sheep, presented a picture of comfort and peace; and the air was filled with the song of birds. Thence he proceeded to Dunrora, and conceived that a few ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... many another herb, dried by the careful Kathi between the two Lady Days, Mary's ascension and Mary's birthday, which may usefully be employed for man or beast—mullein, a very amulet against every kind of cough and sore-throat; plantain, wormwood, red and white mugwort; nor are the scrapings of hartshorn bought from a mountain huntsman forgotten. At this moment, however, no one is dreaming for an instant of being ill: that might happen after, but must not precede ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... his finger, in an abstracted manner. "Bind him!" he said, quietly, turning round to his votaries. And the men, each glad to have escaped his own fate, bound their comrade willingly with green ropes of plantain fibre. ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... lieth a water, which is whitish and very clear, to the quantity of half a pint or thereabouts; which water and white rind before spoken of are both of a very cool fresh taste, and as pleasing as anything may be. I have heard some hold opinion that it is very restorative. The plantain groweth in cods, somewhat like to beans, but is bigger and longer, and much more thick together on the stalk; and when it waxeth ripe, the meat which filleth the rind of the cod becometh yellow, and is ...
— Drake's Great Armada • Walter Biggs

... Brook-lime. Buckshorn Plantain. Burnet. Caterpillar. Celery. Celeriac, or Turnip-rooted Celery. Chervil. Chiccory, or Succory. Corchorus. Corn Salad. Cress, or Peppergrass. Cuckoo Flower. Dandelion. Endive. Horse-radish. Lettuce. Madras Radish. Mallow, Curled-leaf. Mustard. Nasturtium. ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr

... British officer, ordered against the Maroons, was to lay waste a provision-ground or cut them off from water. But there was little satisfaction in this; the wild pine-leaves and the grapevine-withes supplied the rebels with water, and their plantation-grounds were the wild pine-apple and the plantain groves, and the forests, where the wild-boars harbored and the ringdoves were as easily shot as if they were militia-men. Nothing but sheer weariness of fighting seems to have brought about a truce at last, and then a treaty, between those high contracting parties, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... of the island the most important is a wild species of plantain or banana, afterwards found to range along the North-East coast and its islands as far as Cape York. Here I saw for the first time a species of Sciadophyllum, one of the most singular trees of the eastern coastline of tropical Australia; a slender stem, about thirty feet in height, gives ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... and the white surf flew upward; but one little opening admitted the water gently into a quiet bay, where the deep blue rivalled that of the sky, and the water-birds swam in peace. The cocoa-nut, the plantain, and the banana spread their broad leaves to the sun, and flowers of brilliant hues and exquisite fragrance enlivened the landscape. Behind, there uprose tall cliffs covered with the richest foliage, and ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... behind the town, those fierce adventurers will climb hand over hand, through rain and fog, while men lie down, and beg their officers to kill them, for no farther can they go. Yet farther they will go, hewing a path with their swords through woods of wild plantain, and rhododendron thickets, over (so it seems, however incredible) the very saddle of the Silla,* down upon the astonished "Mantuanos" of St. Jago, driving all before them; and having burnt the city in default of ransom, will return triumphant by the ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... carrying baskets of mangoes, plantains, pomegranates, and other indigenous products into the markets of the old Mogul capital. Massive archways, ruined forts and serais, placid water-tanks, lovely gardens, feathery toddy-palms, plantain-hedges, and throngs of picturesque people make the approach to historic Delhi a scene ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... Edwards, "is a term that has no place in the negro vocabulary; instead of trusting to what are called the ground provisions, which are safe from the hurricanes, the negroes, in the cultivation of their own lands, trust more to plantain-groves, corn, and other vegetables that are liable to be destroyed by storms. When they earn a little money, they immediately gratify their palate with salted meats and other provisions, which are to them delicacies. The idea of accumulating, and of being economic in order ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... live in the country or in a small town, you will not have to go many steps, in summer time, before you find the little plant known as Ribgrass, Plantain, or Whiteman's-foot. If you live in a big city, you may find it in any grassy place, but will surely see it, as soon as you reach the suburbs. It grows on the ground, wherever it can see the sun, and is easily known by the strong ribs, each with a string in it when you pull the leaf apart. ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... 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. ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... called, in the charmingly concise and poetical language of technical ornithology, the Scansorial Picarians, and more generally, known to the unlearned herd (meaning you and me) by their several names of woodpeckers, cuckoos, toucans, and plantain-eaters. All the members of this great group, of which the parrots proper are only the most advanced and developed family, possess the same arrangement of the digits into front-toes and back-toes. But in none is the arrangement so perfect as in the parrots, and in none ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... in fact, grew so luxuriantly, that we frequently experienced the greatest difficulty in making our way through. The tarro, which is planted, is from two to three feet high, and has fine large leaves and tubercles, similar to the potato, but which do not taste very good when roasted. The plantain, or banana, is a pretty little tree, from fifteen to twenty feet high, with leaves like those of the palm, and a stem which is often eight inches in diameter, but is not of wood, but cane, and very easily broken. It ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... directed at a low-trimmed lamp in a chamber empty of all life. He saw a row of large black portfolios on low supports, a sewing bag spilled its contents from a chair, a table bore a tin tobacco jar and the empty skin of a plantain. Then his gaze rested upon the floor, on a thin, inanimate body in crumpled alpaca trousers and dark jacket, with a peaked, congested face upturned toward the pale light. It was ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer

... know if sorrel is good for birds, and if so, in what quantity should it be given.—[Probably some birds eat it, but with the majority it is too acid. Groundsel or plantain is much better. Green food may be given freely in summer—regularly; but alternate ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... is a magnificent fruit, and surpasses those of any other country with which I am acquainted. In addition to these three prime fruits of Java, I may mention the pine-apple, soursop, rambutan, rose-apple, guava, dookoo, and sixty different kinds of plantain and banana. These, and many others, thrive and abound on this favoured island. With poultry, butchers' meat, fish, and vegetables, Batavia and Java generally are abundantly supplied; while the residents on its mountains may enjoy ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson

... proprietors, rajahs, baboos, and so on, who hold vast tracts of land, either by grant, or purchase, or hereditary succession; but the tenants are literally the children of the soil. Wherever a village nestles among its plantain or mango groves, the land is parcelled out among the villagers. A large proprietor does not reckon up his farms as a landlord at home would do, but he counts his villages. In a village with a thousand acres belonging to it, there might be 100 or even 200 ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... be mentioned the henbane, which is known in Germany as the "devil's eye," a name applied to the stich-wort in Wales. A species of ground moss is also styled in Germany the "devil's claws;" one of the orchid tribe is "Satan's hand;" the lady's fingers is "devil's claws," and the plantain is "devil's head." Similarly the house-leek has been designated the "devil's beard," and a Norfolk name for the stinkhorn is "devil's horn." Of further plants related to his Satanic majesty is the clematis, termed "devil's thread," the toad-flax is his ribbon, the indigo his dye, while the scandix ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... from the sun by day and the dews by night, while a bunch of plantains or bananas plucked fresh from the tree will furnish an abundant meal, and the water of a green cocoa-nut all the drink they desire. The plantain tree grows to about twenty feet in height, its round, soft stem being composed of the elongated foot-stalks of the leaves, and its cone of a nodding flower-spike or cluster of purple blossoms that are very graceful and beautiful. Like the palms, this tree has no branches, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... Above the arch was a long bas-relief, in hard stone, representing the four seasons, the faces already crumbling away and blackened. This bas-relief was surmounted by a projecting plinth, upon which a variety of chance growths had sprung up,—yellow pellitory, bindweed, convolvuli, nettles, plantain, and even a little cherry-tree, already grown ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac

... of man—were not lost in its new home, nor were its characteristics overlooked by the nature-noting and plant-knowing red man. It was called by the Indian "the Englishman's foot," says Josselyn, and by Kalm also, a later traveller in 1740; "for they say where an Englishman trod, there grew a plantain in each footstep." Not less closely did such old garden weeds as motherwort, groundsel, chickweed, and wild mustard cling to the white man. They are old colonists, brought over by the first settlers, and still thrive and triumph in every kitchen garden and back yard ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... out of the gate he met the girl with the long earrings on the well-trodden path that lay across the pasture ground, overgrown with dock and plantain leaves. She had a long, brightly-coloured apron on, and was quickly swinging her left arm in front of herself as she stepped briskly with her fat, bare feet. With her right arm she was pressing a fowl to her stomach. The fowl, with red comb shaking, seemed ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... of People have their Garments made of long Cloth; but the ordinary sort wear Cloth made of Plantain-tree, which they call Saggen; [3] by which name they call the Plantain. They have neither Stocking or Shooe, and the Women have very ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... in the gathering together of all the fibres, but in gathering them essentially into the profile of the letter V, which you will see your doubled paper stem has; and of which you can feel the strength and use, in your hand, as you hold it. Gather a common plantain leaf, and look at the way it puts its round ribs together at the base, and you will understand the matter at once. The arrangement is modified and disguised in every possible way, according to the leaf's need: in the aspen, the leaf-stalk becomes an absolute vertical plank; ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... house and its grounds. Large, ancient and well-built, the hermitage was surrounded by a massive-pillared courtyard. Outer walls were moss-covered; pigeons fluttered over the flat gray roof, unceremoniously sharing the ashram quarters. A rear garden was pleasant with jackfruit, mango, and plantain trees. Balustraded balconies of upper rooms in the two-storied building faced the courtyard from three sides. A spacious ground-floor hall, with high ceiling supported by colonnades, was used, Master said, chiefly during the annual festivities of ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... claimed attention was the relief of the native Dyaks. A shrewd Dyak once defined the Malay government as "a plantain in the mouth and a thorn in the back." A plantain giving to their poor subjects a little to keep life in them; a thorn stripping them to the skin and piercing them to the bone. The description is pithy, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... is three upright poles, such as the gypsies use for their kettles, thatched with the leaves of the palm and the plantain," Miss Noel went on. "Dear me! It is very odd! I certainly remember to have read that; but perhaps I am getting back to the Southern Americans again, which does so vex Robert. I wonder if one couldn't see a wigwam for one's self? It can't be plantain, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... lovely day! I have spent all the morning lying in the grass in front of my house, under the enormous plantain tree which covers it, and shades and shelters the whole of it. I like this part of the country and I am fond of living here because I am attached to it by deep roots, profound and delicate roots which attach a man to ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... is found in the Magnolia, the Holly, and the radical leaves of the common Plantain and Tobacco. The thread makes three turns of the stem before reaching the eighth leaf which stands over the first. This is the 3/8 arrangement. It is well seen in the Marguerite, a greenhouse plant which is very easily grown in ...
— Outlines of Lessons in Botany, Part I; From Seed to Leaf • Jane H. Newell

... themselves. Primitive agriculture has never battled successfully against the phalanx of the trees. Forests balked the expansion of the Inca civilization on the rainy slope of the Andes, and in Central Africa the negro invaded only their edges for his yam fields and plantain groves. The earliest settlements in ancient Britain were confined to the natural clearings of the chalk downs and oolitic uplands; and here population was chiefly concentrated even at the close of the Roman occupation. Only gradually, as the valley woodlands ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... Cream for.—"Make ointment from plantain laves, simmered in sweet cream or fresh butter. This is ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... eyes of the botanist, was the mingling of many European forms of plants among those of a strictly tropical character. For instance, there were birches, willows, alders, and walnut-trees, growing side by side with the wild plantain, the Wallich palm, and gigantic bamboos; while the great Cedrela Toona, figs of several species, melastomas, balsams, pothos plants, peppers, and gigantic climbing vines and orchids, were intermixed with speedwell, common bramble, forget-me-not, and stinging-nettles, just such as might have ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid

... the vegetable hair and wool described above. The mattress was only two feet six inches wide; for Helen found that she never turned in bed now. She slept as she had never slept before. This mattress was made with plantain-leaves sewed together with the thread furnished by the tree itself, and doubled at ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... of the fish in my basket with wet plantain leaves, and laid my trout king on this cool green bed. Then I hurried off to the old man, whom I saw coming out of the woods. When I opened my basket and showed him what I had caught, Peter looked surprised, and, taking up the ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton

... mountain cave. The encounter thou speakest of with those two excellent youths—the younger Pandavas—is like unto the act of a fool that wantonly trampleth on the tails of two venomous black cobras with bifurcated tongues. The bamboo, the reed, and the plantain bear fruit only to perish and not to grow in size any further. Like also the crab that conceiveth for her own destruction, thou wilt lay hands upon me who am protected by ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... edge, so we ran and galloped and shouted. Wild horses fled from us, and we heard the grunt of boar in the fern thickets. The fan-palms, dwarfs, but graceful, intermingled with magnificent tree-ferns, while above them curved the huetu, the immense mountain plantain, called fei in Tahiti, where they are the bread of the people; they have ribbed, emerald leaves, as big as a man. Feeders of dark people in many lands for thousands of years, theirs is the same golden fruit I had eaten at breakfast with Pere Olivier, ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... dove, of milky hue, Before me from a plantain flew, And, light along the water's brim, I steered my gentle bark by him; For fancy told me, Love had sent This gentle bird with kind intent To lead my steps, where I should meet— I knew not what, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... girl murmured gratefully, and locked her hands beneath The Squaw's chin. This left his arms free to part a path through the thickets of burweed and plantain that choked the defile, and, for fully a half-hour, he kept a good jog. But, well worn and hampered as he was, ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates

... its pale blue flowers aflame, one after another, sparingly, as the lights are kindled in the candelabra of decaying palaces when the heirs of dethroned monarchs are dying out; the red and white clovers; the broad, flat leaves of the plantain,—"the white man's foot," as the Indians called it,—the wiry, jointed stems of that iron creeping plant which we call "knot-grass" and which loves its life so dearly that it is next to impossible to murder it with a hoe, as it clings to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... And obtaining her as wife, Agastya addressed Lopamudra, saying, 'Cast thou away these costly robes and ornaments.' And at these words of her lord, that large-eyed damsel of thighs tapering as the stem of the plantain tree cast away her handsome and costly robes of fine texture. And casting them away she dressed herself in rags and barks and deerskins, and became her husband's equal in vows and acts. And proceeding then to Gangadwara that illustrious and best of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... white sails glancing in the sun, between it and the horizon; and nearer to us, valleys with rich fields and streams of water, and orchards of oranges, limes, and shaddocks; and planters' houses with gardens full of beautiful flowers, and negro huts under the shade of the plantain-trees. Then there were those forest-giants, the silk-cotton-trees, and various kinds of fig-trees and pines, such as in the old world are never seen. But the creepers I have spoken of make the woods still more curious, and unlike anything at home. First, a creeper drops ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... the important productions of these islands, I have mentioned hemp, although the article called Manila hemp must not be understood to be derived from the plant which produces the common hemp (Cannabis), being obtained from a species of plantain (Musa textilis), called in the Philippines "abaca." This is a native of these islands, and was formerly believed to be found only on Mindanao; but this is not the case, for it is cultivated on the south part of Luzon, and ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... (that hath been asked by Draupadi). Say, whether thou regardest Krishna as unwon.' And having spoken thus unto the son of Kunti, Duryodhana desirous of encouraging the son of Radha and insulting Bhima, quickly uncovered his left thigh that was like unto the stem of a plantain tree or the trunk of an elephant and which was graced with every auspicious sign and endued with the strength of thunder, and showed it to Draupadi in her very sight. And beholding this, Bhimasena expanding his red eyes, said unto ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... which the island abounds; but they were so shy that I never could get a shot at them; and I returned over the hills, which my guide assured me was the shortest way. Tired with my walk, I was not sorry to arrive at a sheltered valley, where the palmetto and the plantain offer a friendly shade from the burning sun. The guide, with wonderful agility, mounted the cocoa-nut tree, and threw down half a dozen nuts. They were green, and their milk I thought the most refreshing and delicious draught I ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... his own ships. A flag of truce had been first sent ashore to communicate with England and the other pirates, but it was found that they had fled inland. A week later, a white man, accompanied by a well-armed guard of natives, made his appearance. He told them that he was a Jamaica man named John Plantain, that he had been a pirate, but was tired of the trade, and had settled down on the spot. This John Plantain was a man of some note in the piratical world. Every and England had sailed with him, and treated him with much consideration and some fear. He had made himself ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph

... Maroons, was to lay waste a provision-ground, or cut them off from water. But there was little satisfaction in this: the wild-pine leaves and the grapevine-withes supplied the rebels with water; and their plantation-grounds were the wild pineapple and the plantain-groves, and the forests, where the wild boars harbored, and the ringdoves were as easily shot as if they were militiamen. Nothing but sheer weariness of fighting seems to have brought about a truce at last, and then a treaty, between those high contracting parties, ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... Kuntze pays especial attention to the banana, or plantain. The banana is seedless. It is found throughout tropical Asia and Africa. Professor Kuntze asks, "In what way was this plant, which cannot stand a voyage through the temperate zone, carried to America?" And yet ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... establishments, and good wines. The Sardanapalian motto, "Laugh, sing, dance, and be merry," seems to be universally adopted in this "City of the Plague." The planters' and merchants' villas immediately in the vicinity are extremely tasteful, and are surrounded by large parterres filled with plantain, banana, palm, orange, and rose trees. On the whole, were it not for its unhealthiness, Orleans would be a most desirable residence, and the largest city in the United States, as it is most decidedly the best circumstanced in ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall

... with their peaceful avocations; of bevies of swarthy but merry maidens rolling in on their planks on the top of vast surges; of possibly some hideous banquet of taro roots and "long pig" (baked over hot stones under a cover of plantain leaves) to follow on these primitive pastimes; even perhaps of some coloured captive maiden, wreathed in hibiscus flowers, loudly proclaiming her distaste at the idea of being compulsorily converted into "long pig." ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... quite all the plants you have found in the other islands you have visited are to be found here. Particularly plenteous here are the fibrous plants, and abaca forms in its prepared state one of the most important exports of the islands. This is a sort of plantain from which comes the Manila hemp, as it is sometimes called, though it is a misnomer; and with us it is called simply manila, the sailors tell me. It is extensively cultivated here, and grows something ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... a broad path led to it through bushes covered with red thick-scented flowers. It was King Julius's palace. The front of it was all one piazza, maybe two-hundred feet long and forty deep, with slim bamboo pillars; and men seemed to be still shingling one end of it with layers of plantain leaves. But the king was out in a sort of square to one side, and had about fifty warriors with feathers in their hair, practising spears at a mark. Then he saw us, and then he said something sharp, and the fifty fell into line behind, ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton

... dust-coloured beetle climbs with pain O'er the smooth plantain leaf, a spacious plain! Then higher still by countless steps conveyed, He gains the summit of a shivering blade, And flirts his filmy wings and looks around, Exulting in his ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... impossible, bore their captivity with wonderful dignity and composure. Some even seemed to listen with pleasure to the notes of the Kandyan flute which the natives played near them; and though at first they would not eat, at length when some juicy stems of the plantain were offered them, they could not resist the temptation of the luscious morsels. The young ones, however, though they ate everything given them, screamed and bellowed louder than any of the rest, attacking every one who came near them, and never ceasing their struggles to ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... though at a distance from the coast, here flourishes in great perfection, adding to the splendour of the vegetation, with its glorious crown of monster leaves; while the plantain and banana are widely cultivated, a few plants of which are sufficient to supply a family with bread, vegetables, fruit, and preserves of various kinds. Humboldt observes that an area planted with plantains ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... to defy caste to the extent, not of eating with the dear brother and companion of her youth, but so far as to bring him the remnant of their meal, not in one of the home vessels from which he had eaten so often as a Hindu in the past, but on a plantain leaf ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... their luxuriant foliage. In dry spots he cultivated the sweet potatoe; the cotton-tree flourished upon the heights, and the sugar-cane grew in the clayey soil. He reared some plants of coffee on the hills, where the grain, although small, is excellent. His plantain-trees, which spread their grateful shade on the banks of the river, and encircled the cottages, yielded fruit throughout the year. And lastly, Domingo, to soothe his cares, cultivated a few plants of tobacco. Sometimes he was employed in cutting wood for firing from the mountain, sometimes in hewing ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... of the ward was shouldering his way through the many-coloured crowd, a stolen plantain hanging out of his mouth. He headed straight for the shop, well knowing his privileges as a sacred beast, lowered his head, and puffed heavily along the line of baskets ere making his choice. Up flew Kim's hard little heel and caught him on his moist blue nose. He snorted indignantly, and walked ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... pray tell her that this first favour has somewhat spoiled me, and that now I ask for more than this, for a place in her affections. Madame de Thianges and Madame de Nevers are aware of my respect and attachment for them, and they approve of this, for they have engraved their names and crests on my plantain-trees at Maintenon. Such inscriptions are a bond to bind us, and if no mischance befall, these trees, as I hope, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... will frankly admit that the banana itself, with its practically almost identical relation, the plantain, is a real bit of tropical foliage. I confess to a settled prejudice against the tropics generally, but I allow the sunsets, the coco-nuts, and the bananas. The true stem creeps underground, and sends up each year an upright branch, thickly covered with majestic broad green leaves, somewhat ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... the first course of soup, and the saline flavour of the beef and pork, a sailor might have made a satisfactory meal aboard of the Julia had there been any side dishes—a potato or two, a yam, or a plantain. But there was nothing of the kind. Still, there was something else, which, in the estimation of the men, made up for all deficiencies; and that was ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... sheet on the ground where it would be bordered with daintily traced partridge berry, and white-lined plantain leaves, and sitting on it ate their lunch. Leslie did what she could to interest Mrs. Minturn and cheer her, but at last that lady said: "Thank you dear, you are very good to me; but you can't entertain me to-day. Some other time we'll ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter

... evening we four sat round a bit of fire outside the sleeping-shed, eating broiled fish off plantain leaves, with roast yams for bread—the usual thing. The governor and I were on one side, and these two beauties cross-legged on the other, grunting a word or two to each other, now and then, hardly human speech at all, and their eyes down, fast on the ground. ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... said the doctor; "it has no vulgar name; but it produces a very beautiful flower, which I have never seen, though some seeds of it were sent me by a learned friend in Siberia. The others, divested of their Latin names, are as common as plantain, pig-weed, and burdock; and it stands to reason that, if vegetable Nature has any such wonderfully efficacious medicine in store for men, and means them to use it, she would have strewn it everywhere ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... shaded by a protecting roof of the same palm leaves; and, above all, several well-fenced enclosures around it, one of them containing a number of tame cattle, others under tillage—with maize, manioc, the plantain, and similar tropical products—all these insignia evinced the care and cultivating hand of some one else than ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... and the sound of the wind talking on the hard palm leaves and the thump of the natives' tom- toms; or the cry of the parrots passing over the mangrove swamps in the evening time; or the sweet, long, mellow whistle of the plantain warblers calling up the dawn; and everything that is round you grows poor and thin in the face of the vision, and you want to go back to the Coast that is calling you, saying, as the African says to ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... They build nests like a crucible, with the opening downwards, and usually attach them to the tender branches of a tree hanging over a well or tank. P. baya is found throughout India; its nest is made of grasses and strips of the plantain or date-palm stripped while green. It is easily tamed and taught some tricks, such as to load and fire a toy cannon, to pick up a ring, &c,' (Balfour, Cyclopaedia, 3rd ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... palpebrum, and died in twenty minutes. Mease reports a fourth ease from Connecticut, in which a man of twenty-six was stung by a bee on the tip of the nose. He recovered after treatment with ten-grain doses of Dover's Powder, and persistent application of plantain leaves. A fifth case was that of a farmer in Pennsylvania who was stung in the left side of the throat by a wasp which he had swallowed in drinking cider. Notwithstanding medical treatment, death ensued twenty-seven ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... confitures and spices were not more remarkable than the domestic pharmacy in which the herbs of the field had been distilled by Madame's own hands to yield their peculiar virtues, rue for liver, calamint for cholera, plantain for the kidneys, fennel for indigestion, elderberry for sore throat, and dandelion for affections of the blood. Then I was shown the oak presses full of linen white as snow and laid up in lavender. This inventory being concluded, I was presented ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... their food as much as we do. In summer there are many weeds which are a great treat to them. Dandelion, plantain, clover, grass and hay, with an occasional sprig of parsley, will give them much pleasure. In winter they may have carrots, turnips, and parsnips with barley meal and some oats. Too much green food is likely to make them ill, and too ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy

... Raja, Magadheshwar by name, and he has a daughter called Chandravati. You will marry her; she is very learned, and, what is better far, very fait. She is of yellow colour, with a nose like the flower of the sesamum; her legs are taper, like the plantain-tree; her eyes are large, like the principal leaf of the lotus; her eye-brows stretch towards her ears; her lips are red, like the young leaves of the mango-tree; her face is like the full moon; her voice is like the sound of the cuckoo; her arms reach to her knees; her throat is like the pigeon's; ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... thistles, houndstongue, cuckoo-pint, charlock, nettles (once more), and thorn bushes. The cattle or the rabbits eat down at once all juicy and succulent plants, leaving only these nauseous or prickly kinds, together with such stringy and innutritious weeds as chervil, plantain, and burdock. Here we see the mechanism of natural selection at work under our ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... garden and jostle and override each other in their strife to be near him! Some of them are so domestic and familiar, and so harmless withal, that one comes to regard them with positive affection. Motherwort, catnip, plantain, tansy, wild mustard,—what a homely human look they have! they are an integral part of every old homestead. Your smart new place will wait long before they draw near it. Or knot-grass, that carpets every old ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... wonder roundly At any astounding yarn, By darning their dear eyes roundly ('T was all they had to darn). They "hoisted their slacks," adjusting Garments of plantain-leaves With nautical twitches (as if they wore breeches, Instead of a dress ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert

... of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first? It has been so written for the most part, that the times it describes are with remarkable propriety called dark ages. They are dark, as one has observed, because we are so in the dark about them. The sun rarely shines ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... mountain. There are a lot of strawberries planted there, which do very well, but there were not many ripe. The common weeds and plants of the top were very like English ones, such as buttercups, sow-thistle, plantain, wormwood, chickweed, charlock, St. John's wort, violets and many others, all closely allied to our common plants of those names, but of distinct species. There was also a honey-suckle, and a tall and very pretty kind of cowslip. None of these are found in the low tropical ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant

... the four hundred and forty-two monkeys, for the plantain-eaters, the fruit-pigeons of the Spice Islands that feed on nutmegs, for the toucans and the flocks of parrots, parroquets, cockatoos, and other fruit-eating birds. As they did not know how to can fruit in those ...
— The Deluge in the Light of Modern Science - A Discourse • William Denton

... names for the Plantain were Waybroad (corrupted to Weybread, Wayborn, and Wayforn) and Ribwort. It was also called Lamb's-tongue and Kemps, while the flower spike with the stalk was called Cocks and Cockfighters (still so called by children).[214:1] The old name of Ribwort was derived from the ribbed leaves, ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... of the Brull mansion was the throne of his sovereignty. His partisans would find him there, pacing up and down among the green boxes of plantain trees, his hands clasped behind his broad, strong, but now somewhat stooping back—a majestic back withal, capable of supporting hosts ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... birds, a great number of new or rare species, and among those remarkable either for size or beauty, are the golden vulture, the great American eagle, the Impey peacock, the Ju[] pheasant or argus, the plantain-eater, &c. ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... scarcely any furniture, the owners passing their time swinging in dirty hammocks, and occasionally taking down a canoe-load of plantains to Greytown for sale. It is one of the rarest sights to see any of these squatters at work. Their plantain patch and occasionally some fish from the river suffice to keep them ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... Aubrey's cane applied itself diligently to making a plantain leaf lie to the right of its neighbour instead ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... them which Mr. Bowditch could get the native interpreters to translate, are derived from animals, plants and other natural objects, just as in Australia.(1) Thus Quonna is a buffalo, Abrootoo is a cornstalk, Abbradi a plantain. Other names are, in English, the parrot, the wild cat, red earth, panther and dog. Thus all the natives of this part of Africa are parrots, dogs, buffaloes, panthers, and so forth, just as the Australians are emus, iguanas, black ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... to and fro with a lobster-like gesture, her feet and legs tending one way, while her head, turned in a different direction, was fixed in wonder upon the laird, who was more frequently heard of than seen by his tenants and dependants. The bread and honey, however, deposited on a plantain leaf, was offered and accepted in all due courtesy. The Lord Keeper, still retaining the place which he had occupied on the decayed trunk of a fallen tree, looked as if he wished to prolong the interview, but was at a loss how to ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... used for paper and books. In Ceylon, for instance, the leaves of the talipot; in India, the leaves of the palm (with which they commonly covered their houses,) were used for books. In the East Indies, the leaves of the plantain tree, dried in the sun, were used for the same purpose. In China, paper is made of the inner bark of the mulberry, the bamboo, the elm, ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers

... in cream, and strained before it is put away to cool, makes a very cooling, soothing ointment. Plantain leaves laid upon a wound are cooling ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child

... flaunting blossoms. A bashful cucumber which basked unobtrusively in the wetness of the ice-box outlet under the shed at Artie Van Arlen's home was growing apace. But not a sign was there of Tom's beans or peas or beets—nothing in his little allotted patch but a lonely plantain which he had carefully nursed until Pee-wee had told him the bitter truth—that this child of his heart was ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... advance. I saw plenty of snow on two high peaks, and had a peep of the Lohit beyond Brahma Koond. Wallichia continues, as well as Bambusa, Saccharum Megala. The kheties are either of rice or Cynosurus or Zea. Tobacco is not cultivated, but left to take care of itself. Buddleia Neemda and wild plantain continue, the latter is probably a distinct species; leaves subtis glauco niveis. Pandanus continues. The name of the Red mountain before alluded to, is Thu-ma- thaya, the rivulet at its base is Tus-soo-muchee. Tus-soo ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... permeates the universe, the poetical intuition of man never fails to find it, and to delight in everything typical of that Spirit. "The leaves of the plantain," says a Zen poet, "unfold themselves, hearing the voice of thunder. The flowers of the hollyhock turn towards the sun, looking at it all day long." Jesus could see in the lily the Unseen Being who clothed it so lovely. Wordsworth found the most profound thing in all the world to ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya

... out, as if imploring help from Nature, the great mother of us all. A summer moon rode high in a cloudless heaven, and far as eye could reach stretched the green wilderness of a Cuban cafetal. No forest, but a tropical orchard, rich in lime, banana, plantain, palm, and orange trees, under whose protective shade grew the evergreen coffee plant, whose dark-red berries are the fortune of their possessor, and the luxury of one-half the world. Wide avenues diverging from the mansion, with its belt of brilliant shrubs and ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott

... it were, reflected in the giant foliage of the trees, and on the dewy herbage of the mountainsides, gemmed with the scintillations of innumerable fire-flies; while the gentle night-wind, rustling through the lofty plantain and feathery cocoa-nut, bears upon its breath a world of rich and balmy odours. Perhaps the scene is still more lovely when the pale moon flings down her rays on the chalice of the Datura arborea, brimming with nectareous dew—her own most favoured flower, delicate of scent ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various

... Kallstroemia laetevirens Tr. Lupinus sparsiflorus (lupine) Tr. Martynia altheaefolia (small devil's-horns) 12 Mollugo verticillata (carpetweed) 324 Oenothera primiverus (evening primrose) 15 Opuntia discata (prickly pear) 15 Loeflingia pusilla Tr. Lepidium lasiocarpum (peppergrass) Tr. Plantago ignota (plantain) 818 Polygala puberula (milkwort) Tr. Portulaca suffrutescens (purslane) Tr. Prosopis velutina (mesquite) 1,570 Sida diffusa (spreading sida) 30 Solanum elaeagnifolium (742 fruits) (trompillo, prickly solanum) 156 Puffballs ...
— Life History of the Kangaroo Rat • Charles T. Vorhies and Walter P. Taylor

... are derived from Musa paradisiaca, of which an enormous number of varieties and forms exist in cultivation. The sub-species sapientum (formerly regarded as a distinct species M. sapientum) is the source of the fruits generally known in England as bananas, and eaten raw, while the name plantain is given to forms of the species itself M. paradisiaca, which require cooking. The species is probably a native of India and southern Asia. Other species which are used as fruits are M. acuminata in the Malay Archipelago, M. Fehi in Tahiti, and M. Cavendishii, the so-called Chinese banana, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... is simply put in heaps on a suitable floor. In Trinidad and the majority of other cacao-producing areas, where the forastero variety predominates, from five to nine days are required. The cacao is put into the "sweat" boxes and covered with banana or plantain leaves to keep in the heat. The boxes may measure four feet each way and be made of sweet-smelling cedar wood. As is usual with fermentation, the temperature begins to rise, and if you thrust ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp

... hill-sides of the southern border, and are to be seen peeping out from the green foliage with which the southern slopes are clad. In the vicinity of, and actually up to the houses, in the War villages, are to be observed large groves of areca-nut, often twined with the pan creeper, and of plantain trees, which much enhance the beauty of the scene. Looking at a War village from a distance, a darker shade of green is seen; this denotes the limits of the extensive groves where the justly celebrated Khasi orange is grown, which is the source of so ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... zones. Immediately under the equator is a wide area of heavy rainfall and dense forest. The rapidity and rankness of vegetable growth renders the region unsuited to agriculture. But the plentiful streams abound in fish and the forests in animals and fruits. The banana and plantain grow there in superabundance, and form the chief diet of the inhabitants. This may be called, for convenience, the banana zone. To the north and south of this zone are broad areas of less rainfall and forest, with a dry season suitable ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... PALM, the Plantain "far spreading," and the Cypress pointing to heaven, are also ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson

... mowed alone, Rag-wrapped, among the cattle in the fields, Counting his fingers, jesting with the trees, And mocking at the mist, until his God Drove him to labour. Out of dung and horns Dropped in the mire he made a monstrous God, Abhorrent, shapeless, crowned with plantain tufts, And when the cattle lowed at twilight-time, He dreamed it was the clamour of lost crowds, And howled among the beasts: "Thus Gods are made, And whoso makes them otherwise shall die." Thereat the cattle bellowed. . . ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling

... here, and of singular use among the negroes—it is well worth the price (L60) of the negro's freedom, since it is now known how to cure slaves without mercury."[10] And in colonial South Carolina a slave named Caesar was particularly famed for his cure for poison, which was a decoction of plantain, hoar-hound and golden rod roots compounded with rum and lye, together with an application of tobacco leaves soaked in rum in case of rattlesnake bite. In 1750 the legislature ordered his prescription published ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... from Jealousy The Fruitfulness of the Locust Lamenting the Absence of a Cherished Friend Celebrating the Goodness of the Descendants of King Wan The Virtuous Manners of the Young Women Praise of a Rabbit-Catcher The Song of the Plantain-Gatherers The Affection of ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... especially as it was designed to punish the weaker sex and usually those advanced in years. Before the ugly machine and between it and the road which ran past the pond to the village was a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pigweed, plantain and such unsightly vegetation, which seemed to find something congenial in the soil that bore an instrument for the torture of the gentler sex; but on one side of the post and leaning against it was a wild ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick



Words linked to "Plantain" :   narrow-leaved plantain, psyllium, white-man's foot, rattlesnake plantain, herb, narrow-leaved water plantain, veggie, Plantago major, cart-track plant, Plantago, ribwort, plantain lily, robin's plantain, broad-leaved plantain, Plantago media, ribgrass, genus Plantago, fleawort, water-plantain family, banana, plantain-leaved pussytoes, herbaceous plant, hoary plantain, Plantago psyllium, common plantain, plantain family, banana tree, English plantain, Plantago virginica, vegetable, Plantago rugelii, mud plantain, veg, Spanish psyllium, Musa paradisiaca, plantain tree, Plantago lanceolata, buckthorn, ripple-grass, whiteman's foot



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