Botanical Description.--A tree with stellately arranged straight branches. Leaves stellate, long, narrow, linear, 4-grooved. They have been compared to the tail of a horse and the tail of a certain bird--the casobar. Staminate and pistillate flowers greenish, on different parts of the same stalk. Staminate, in small aments. Pistillate on small globose aments; calyx proper of the floweret, a coarse scale; corolla none; ovary conical; styles 2, flattened, divergent; stigmas acute. Fruit: Each floweret produces a woody seed-vessel, bivalved, ovate, glabrous, with a small seed ending in an oval wing; all these seed vessels joined form a small cone about 1' long. Habitat.--Very common in Ilocos, Tarlak, Binangonang of Lampong and N. Ecija. MONOCOTYLEDONS. MUSACEÆ. Banana Family. _Musa paradisiaca_, L. _M. sapientum_, L. Nom. Vulg. _Plátano_, Sp.; _Saging_, Tag., etc.; _Banana_, Eng. Uses.--The fruit produced by the various varieties of the banana plant constitutes one of the most wholesome and delicious of foods, appreciated by natives and Europeans alike. According to Boussingaul its nutritive value is greater than that of the potato and it may be used constantly without ill effects. Bananas contain a large percentage of sugar and mucilage. In India they dry them in the sun, as figs and grapes are treated in other countries and thus preserve them for long voyages by sea or land; eaten in conjunction with animal food they are a strong preventive of scurvy. If eaten when thoroughly ripe they have a laxative effect. The young and tender leaves are used in the Philippines as a protective dressing for ulcers, dermatitis, burns and cantharidal or other artificial blisters. Before applying to the affected surface the leaf is heated to make it more flexible and coated with a thin layer of cocoanut oil or other fatty substance. In the dispensaries of India they also use the leaves in this way, thus protecting and at the same time maintaining the moisture of the part. Dr. Waring recommends the practice and Dr. Van Someren follows it in the application of water dressings, having substituted banana leaves for gutta-percha. In Mauritius the fruit is used for dysentery, and the flowers, together with an equal quantity of those of _Spilanthes Acmella_, are made into a decoction and prescribed for dropsy. Botanical Description.--The banana plant with its huge waving leaves and succulent stem is universally familiar. The flower stalk rises through the center developing a drooping spike, the flowers in short rows in the axils of its large purplish bracts. According to Blanco there are 57 varieties of this plant in the Philippines, the following being the most common edible varieties: _bungulang_, _lakatan_, _letondang_, _obispo_, _higo_, _morado_, _butuan_, _bentikohol_, _sabá_, _tampuhing_. Habitat.--Common everywhere in the islands. ZINGIBERACEÆ. Ginger Family. _Zingiber officinale_, L. (_Amomum zingiber_, L. and Blanco.)