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Updated: May 5, 2025
Count Sternberg remarked that we are unacquainted with any existing species of plant, which like the Lepidodendron, preserves at all ages, and throughout the whole extent of the trunk, the scars formed by the attachment of the petioles, or leaf-stalks, or the markings of the leaves themselves.
While Oliver and I were proceeding with this work, Macco who was far more ingenious than we were, commenced the operation of the washing machine. This he formed of the large sheathing bases of the leaves, in the shape of a trough. The object is to strain the sago pith. With the fibrous covering from the leaf-stalks of the cocoa-nuts he soon twisted a net-like strainer.
There are very few palm-trees in this country, but near Bango we saw a few of a peculiar palm, the ends of the leaf-stalks of which remain attached to the trunk, giving it a triangular shape. It is pleasant to observe that all the tribes in Central Africa are fond of agriculture. My men had collected quantities of seeds in Angola, and now distributed them among their friends.
The shallow lakes and bays then contain plenty of fish, and the boys and women go out at night to spear them by torchlight the torches being made of thin strips of green bark from the leaf-stalks of palms, tied in bundles. Many small Salmonidae are also met with, and a kind of sole, called Aramassa, which moves along the clear sandy bottom of the bay.
The apparent stem, being merely composed of the overlapping and sheathing leaf-stalks, has naturally very little stability; and the soft succulent trunk accordingly gives way forthwith at the slightest onslaught. This liability to be blown down in high winds forms the weak point of the plantain, viewed as a food-stuff crop.
These stems are covered with scars or scales, which have been caused by the separation of the petioles or leaf-stalks, and this gives rise to the name which the genus bears. The scars are arranged in a spiral manner the whole of the way up the stem, and the stems often remain perfectly upright in the coal-mines, and reach into the strata which have accumulated above the coal-seam.
The number of spiders ornamented with showy colours was somewhat remarkable. Some double themselves up at the base of leaf-stalks, so as to resemble flower-buds, and thus deceive the insects on which they prey. The most extraordinary-looking spider was a species of Acrosoma, which had two curved bronze-coloured spines, an inch and a half in length, proceeding from the tip of its abdomen.
If this be confirmed and such a statement needs ample confirmation then it may be suspected that these slender leaves not only incurve after prolonged contact, just as do the leaf-stalks of many climbers, but also make free and independent circular sweeps, in the manner of twining stems and of many tendrils. Correlated movements like these indicate purpose.
Remove the scales by cutting carefully through a single pair, opposite the leaf-stalk, and peeling them off. The scales are modified stipules, instead of leaf-stalks, as in Horsechestnut. The outer pair are brown and thick, the inner green, and becoming more delicate and crumpled as we proceed toward the centre of the bud. The leaves begin with the second or third pair of scales.
The leaf-stalks and young branches are also brightly tinted. Another of these trees has a very singular name: it is called the necklace poplar." "Do the flowers grow like real necklaces?" asked Clara. "Not quite," replied her governess, "but the reason given is something like it. The tree is so called from the resemblance of the long ament, before opening, to the beads of a necklace.
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