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Plantain   Listen
noun
Plantain  n.  
1.
(Bot.) A treelike perennial herb (Musa paradisiaca) of tropical regions, bearing immense leaves and large clusters of the fruits called plantains. See Musa.
2.
The fruit of this plant. It is long and somewhat cylindrical, slightly curved, and, when ripe, soft, fleshy, and covered with a thick but tender yellowish skin. The plantain is a staple article of food in most tropical countries, especially when cooked.
Plantain cutter, or Plantain eater (Zool.), any one of several large African birds of the genus Musophaga, or family Musophagidae, especially Musophaga violacea. See Turaco. They are allied to the cuckoos.
Plantain squirrel (Zool.), a Java squirrel (Sciurus plantani) which feeds upon plantains.
Plantain tree (Bot.), the treelike herb Musa paradisiaca. See def. 1 (above).






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Plantain" Quotes from Famous Books



... 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, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... 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, as I conceived that in the rainy ...
— 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

... bridal blossoms clothe the orange tree, or golden fruit hangs among its clusters of glossy leaves. The starry rind and pale-green crown of the pineapple tempt you to enjoy the luscious fruit. High in air the cocoanut tree lifts its palmy diadem. The long broad leaves of the plantain protect its branches of green or yellow fruit, and throw a grateful shade upon the way, open here and there. Here is, indeed "a wilderness of sweets," and the air is full of blended fragrances. While the eye ranges, seeing trees, fruits, and flowers innumerable, of glorious hues ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... 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

... Port Saint Augustine, or Walche Caep, and is near what is called in the charts C. de la Colta de St. Bonaventura. In every part of the coast, the land is covered with a vast luxuriance of wood and herbage. The cocoa-nut, the bread-fruit, and the plantain-tree, flourish here in the highest perfection; besides which, the country abounds with most of the trees, shrubs, and plants, that are common to the South Sea islands, New Zealand, and ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... in 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 ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy

... 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 ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... in an equally destitute condition. In this strait, I remembered having heard Arthur describe the manner in which the native children had been taught to write in the missionary schools at Eimeo, the only materials used being plantain leaves and a pointed stick. I mentioned this to Browne, and we forthwith proceeded to experiment with different kinds of leaves, until at last we found a large heart-shaped one, which answered our purpose ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... happened that little Peter was feeding his pet rabbits with plantain just outside the doors of the town-meeting that afternoon of June 19th. As the dignified men adjourned from the gathering, they still discussed the measures adopted for the erection of the fort. Peter's sharp ears overheard the mystic words "sixteen years." Had not ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster

... however, the plantain does not appear to be so nutritive or strength-supporting as rice; at least, those persons who are principally dependent on it for food appear less robust looking than the rice-fed population. This, however, ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking

... 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

... 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 plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... 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

... 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

... emaciated specimen for a Shan—came forward, asking whether I could cure his disease. I fear he will never be cured. His arm and one side of his body was one mass of sores. Before it could be seen four layers of Chinese paper had to be removed, one huge plantain leaf, and a thick layer of black stuff resembling tar. I was busy for some thirty minutes dressing it with new bandages. I then gave him ointment for subsequent dressings, whereupon he put on his coat and walked out of the room (leaving ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... that a birdie likes. There is a little seed called millet, which I get at the market in the heads as it grows, and the birdies love to pick out the little round seeds. A bit of cabbage leaf is a treat to them, and any one living in the country can give birds the long seed heads of the plantain, or the little satchel-like seeds of the pouch-weed. I sometimes give my birds a little hard-boiled egg, but one must be careful not to give enough of these things to make the ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... a lovely day! I have spent all the morning lying on the grass in front of my house, under the enormous plantain tree which covers and shades and shelters the whole of it. I like this part of the country; I am fond of living here because I am attached to it by deep roots, the profound and delicate roots which attach a man to the soil on which his ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... lodging and a place of protection in the event of a recurrence of bad weather, and we were not likely to find it by standing still. Also we were looking for food, with a view to the future; but the question of supplies afforded us little anxiety, for banana and plantain trees were abundant in that valley, to say nothing of grapes and several other kinds of fruit. Coming to a banana tree, the fruit of which was fully ripe, we made a good meal, and then, feeling rather tired, we trampled down a smooth ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood

... this section for remarks on certain articles used at our fashionable modern tables, of which I could not well find it convenient to speak elsewhere. And first, of SALADS, and HERBS used in cooking; such as asparagus, artichokes, spinage, plantain, cabbage, ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott

... till we were well nigh walled in. At every fresh deposit, Media directing our attention to the same, as yet additional evidence of his ample resources as a host. The evidence was finally closed by dragging under the eaves a felled plantain tree, the spike of red ripe fruit, sprouting therefrom, blushing all over, at so rude an introduction to the notice ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... reject the lower or coarser leaves 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 ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... 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 for the benefit of the public, and the Charleston journal which printed it ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... Or if the wind had been blowing the other way he could have told, without looking around, that Mrs. Woodchuck's son Billy was gazing at him, with popeyes, from behind a near-by hummock. He had meandered homewards, pausing here and there to nip off a clover head or tear at a plantain leaf, little dreaming that old dog Spot was right ...
— The Tale of Old Dog Spot • Arthur Scott Bailey

... mass, at which the young Hardys looked very doubtfully,—and was placed in a large sugar hogshead, which had been procured for the purpose. In the bottom of this eight large holes were bored, and these were stopped up with pieces of plantain stalk. Through the porous substance of these stalks the molasses or treacle slowly drained off. As the wet sugar was placed in the cask, layers of slices of plantain stems were laid upon it, as the spongy substance draws the dark ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty

... supported by golden columns, surmounted with a dome, rising to a height of forty-five feet, and constructed to represent an eastern sky; beneath which is seen spreading the broad umbrageous foliage of the luxuriant plantain, bearing its fruit and displaying, in all the progressive stages, 296the different varieties, from the early blossom to maturity: curious Chinese symbols are suspended from the trunk, and connect themselves with a grand lustre, rising to a height of thirty feet, and reflecting the most varied ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... 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 ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... fry um, and sell for money; but when you send to me? not one little fish ebber find way to my mouth. What I tell you 'bout Peter and 'postles—all fishermen; good men, give 'way to poor. Sambo, you no ab charity; and 'spose you no repent this week, and send one very fine fish in plantain leaf, you go to hell, and burn for ebber and ebber. Eh! so you will run away, Massa Johnson," cried he out to another, who was edging to the door; "but you no run away from hell-fire: when debil catch you, he hold dam tight. You know you kill sheep and goat ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... was a new-comer to the shores of the great lagoon. The place suited him admirably by reason of the abundance of its fruits. Along the banks of the lagoon were innumerable little groves of plantain, the rich sustaining fruit of which was of all foods his favorite. And he had found no trace whatever of his most dangerous enemies, the gigantic and implacable black lion of the caves, the red bear and ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... 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 ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... applying bandages above the wound and scarifying or 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, or spirits of turpentine. ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... 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 plentifully within ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... and dwellings, and throng his 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. Our knot-grass, that carpets every old dooryard, ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs

... 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 ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... men prepared one of the chickens in a trice. They stripped off the feathers, cut up the fowl, and broiled the pieces over the fire on little skewers of hard wood. In a short time an excellent breakfast of broiled chicken, rice, and plantain was set before him, and Jack devoured it with the utmost relish. Then he set himself to work by means of signs to make them understand that he wished them to lead him to the village from which the Panthay had fetched ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... Being who knew no fear. There 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 ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... 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, ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... man,' Kassyan answered thoughtfully. 'I too am not without sin. They call me a doctor.... Me a doctor, indeed! And who can heal the sick? That is all a gift from God. But there are ... yes, there are herbs, and there are flowers; they are of use, of a certainty. There is plantain, for instance, a herb good for man; there is bud-marigold too; it is not sinful to speak of them: they are holy herbs of God. Then there are others not so; and they may be of use, but it's a sin; and to speak of them is a sin. Still, with prayer, may be.... And ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev

... 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, he began then ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates

... 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

... 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, with spears and shields in disciplined order. ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton

... 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 Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya

... the life and soul of the plan, his post may be supplied with a botanic plate, containing representations of the following flowers:—daffodil, fox-glove, hyacinth, bilberry, wild tulip, red poppy, plantain, winter green, flower de luce, common daisy, crab-tree blossom, cowslip, primrose, lords and ladies, pellitory of the wall, mallow, lily of the valley, bramble, strawberry, flowering rush, wood spurge, wild germander, ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... the wealth, population and celebrated market of this place, he was surprised to find it to consist of nearly five hundred villages, almost joining each other, occupying a vast and beautiful plain, adorned with the finest trees. Amongst these, the plantain, the palm, and the cocoa-nut tree, were seen flourishing in great abundance, and the aspect of the country strikingly resembled some parts of Yariba. A considerable traffic is carried on here in slaves ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... 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 (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 ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various

... sent to her husband's home. His motives in marrying her were wholly evil, but the child knew something of right and wrong, and she resisted him. Then he dragged her into an inner room, and he held her down, and smothered her shrieks, and pressed a plantain into her mouth. It was poisoned. She knew it, and did not swallow it all. But what she was forced to take made her ill, and she lay for days so dizzy and sick that when her husband kicked her as she lay she did not care. ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael

... into fury, 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 cascades, like silver threads, dashed ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... the other two.... Mokenga is a beautiful village, containing about one hundred and sixty houses; they were the largest dwellings I had yet seen on the journey. The village was surrounded by a dense grove of plantain-trees, many of which had to be supported by poles, on account of the weight of the enormous bunches of plantains they bore. Little groves of lime-trees were scattered everywhere, and the limes, like so much golden fruit, looked beautiful amidst the dark foliage ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... It opens the small room Of herbs for medicine, of hellebore, Of vervain, monkshood, plantain, and self-heal. The book of cures is on ...
— The Countess Cathleen • William Butler Yeats

... appearance. Thus prepared, it may be kept for a long time, and is very serviceable for use on long journeys. The variety of the banana thus used is, however, a much larger kind than any of those ordinarily found in our Northern markets, and is known as the plantain. The dried plantain, powdered, furnishes a meal of fragrant odor and bland taste, not unlike common wheat flour. It is said to be easy of digestion, and two pounds of the dry meal or six pounds of the fruit is the daily allowance for a laborer ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... were the 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 spring of clear, ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis

... prefers 8 lbs. His highest price was 2l., and he easily obtains from 10s. to 15s. In one greenhouse we saw 2,500 plants potted and bedded; the total numbers more than double that figure. The proprietor has a steam-saw, makes his own boxes, and packs his pines with dry leaves of maize and plantain. He is also cultivating a dwarf banana, too short to be wind-wrung. His ground will grow anything: the wild asparagus, which in Istria rises knee-high, here becomes a tall ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... 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 Duryodhana in the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... wished to drink, I removed the stopper and inserted the tube, just as an insect might let down its proboscis, and sucked the contents. Sir S. Baker says of the people of Unyoro, "During a journey, a pretty, bottle-shaped, long-necked gourd is carried with a store of plantain-cider; the mouth of the bottle is stopped with a bundle of the white rush shreds, through which a reed is inserted that reaches to the bottom: thus the drink can be sucked up during the march, without the necessity of halting; nor is it possible to spill it by the ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... bells—hung from the roof. The Arab writer tells of gold shining from the ceiling like fire, blazing like lightning when it darts across the clouds. The pulpit, wherein was kept the Koran, was of ivory and of exquisite woods, of ebony and sandal, of plantain, citron and aloe, fastened together with gold and silver nails and encrusted with priceless gems. It needed six Khalifs and Almanzor, the great Vizier, to complete the mosque of which Arab writers, with somewhat prosaic enthusiasm, said that 'in ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham

... the customary daily thunderstorm descended. So they halted under a spreading plantain tree, whose leaves, broader even than banana leaves, really were very good umbrellas. Here they ate ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin

... plantain plants were also seen in the neighbourhood of the villages, which as we advanced became very numerous. The villages of the Wakimbu are like those of the Wagogo, square, flat-roofed, enclosing an open area, which is sometimes divided into three or four parts by fences ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... 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 ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... plants cultivated by man, the sugar-cane, the plantain (musa), the mammee-apple (mammea), and alligator-pear-tree (laurus persea) alone have the property of the cocoa-nut-tree, that of being watered alike with fresh and salt water. This circumstance is favorable to their migrations; and if the sugar-cane of the shore yield a syrup that is a little ...
— The Church of England Magazine - Volume 10, No. 263, January 9, 1841 • Various

... 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 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... her slightly; I prescribed every day what she was to eat, and forbade the use of all cosmetics; I only advised her to wash herself morning and evening with plantain water. The modest oracle told the princess to make use of the same water for her ablutions of every part of her body where she desired to obtain the same result, and she obeyed ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... dissolved in water, and strained to separate the impurities, and the saturated brine reduced in earthen pots, set in long ranges of stone and clay. The pots are constantly replenished, until they are filled with a solid mass of salt; they are then removed bodily, packed in dry plantain-leaves, and sent to market on the backs of mules. Sometimes the pots are broken off, to lighten the load, and great piles of their fragments—miniature Monti testacci—are seen around the Salinas, as these works are called, where they will remain long after this rude system ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... functioning on astral levels, their oversoul, mahamahatma. The faithful hermetists await the light, ripe for chelaship, ringroundabout him. Louis H. Victory. T. Caulfield Irwin. Lotus ladies tend them i'the eyes, their pineal glands aglow. Filled with his god, he thrones, Buddh under plantain. Gulfer of souls, engulfer. Hesouls, shesouls, shoals of souls. Engulfed with wailing creecries, whirled, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... him Olla, or Orra, which is the name of the god of Bolabola, but his own proper name was Etary. From Omai's account of this person, I expected to have seen some religious adoration paid to him. But, excepting some young plantain trees that lay before him, and upon the awning under which he sat, I could observe nothing by which he might be distinguished from their other chiefs. Omai presented to him a tuft of red feathers, tied to the end of a small stick; but, after a little ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... 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 ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke

... the green touraco and the purple plantain-eater, a rascally bird! who eats some of our finest plantains, and has bitten holes in many a one I thought to get entirely to myself. Why, our parrots beat these West-African negroes to sticks! Even our ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... people 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 long ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... of the potato as food has been much discussed; but it seems to rank next to the plantain, and a long way behind either rice or wheat. The author of the Chemistry of Common Life has pointed to the remarkable physiological likeness of tribes of people who live chiefly on rice, plantain, and ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... greatest problem of all is the plantain or banana. Professor Kuntze, an eminent German botanist, asks, "In what way was this plant" (a native of tropical Asia and Africa) "which cannot stand a voyage through the temperate zone, carried to America?" As he points out, the plant is seedless, ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot

... 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 ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson

... simply. Then he gave a glad shout. "By Jove! Miss Deane, we are in luck's way. There is a fine plantain tree." ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... there, no footprints to show where he had followed the trail of his mystery on the sands of Coralio that night. He came; he spake his strange jargon of the asphalt and the cafes; he sat under the cocoanut-tree, and vanished. The next morning Coralio, Smithless, ate its fried plantain and said: "The man of pictured clothing went himself away." With the siesta the ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... smiles supplied the place of the anxious and doubtful expression which I had left them wearing. All vied in their attentions; fruit enough to fill a room: the luscious durian, the delicate mangosteen and lousch, the grateful rombusteen, the baluna, pitabu, mowha, plantain, &c., &c., were showered upon us from all quarters. The rajah daily sent a dinner; all was rejoicing, and few or no clouds lowered in the distance. I was proud and happy; for I felt and feel that much ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... bear me then to western climes, Since virtue leaves our wretched land, to fields Yet unpolluted with Iberian swords, The isles of innocence, from mortal view Deeply retired, beneath a plantain's shade, Where happiness and quiet sit enthroned. With simple Indian swains, that I may hunt The boar and tiger through savannahs wild, Through fragrant deserts and through citron groves? There fed on dates and herbs, would I despise The far-fetched cates of luxury, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... photographer established in every considerable village,—nay, one may not unfrequently see a photographic ambulance standing at the wayside upon some vacant lot where it can squat unchallenged in the midst of burdock and plantain and apple-Peru, or making a long halt in the middle of a common by special ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... Tucker arrived he sent to the West Indies for plants and fruit trees. The vessel returned with figs, pine-apples, sugar-cane, plantain and paw-paw, which were all planted and rapidly multiplied. This vessel also brought the first slaves into the colony, ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... all the serpent deadly brood appears; First the dull Asp its swelling neck uprears; The huge Hemor'rho[:i]s, vampire of the blood; Chersy'ders, that pollute both field and flood; The Water-serpent, tyrant of the lake; The hooded Cobra; and the Plantain snake; Here with distended jaws the Prester strays; And Seps, whose bite both flesh and bone decays; The Amphisbaena with its double head, One on the neck, and one of tail instead; The horned Cerast[^e]s; ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... Monte Cristo. "Come this way, gentlemen; come, M. Villefort, for a declaration to be available, should be made before the competent authorities." He then took Villefort's arm, and, at the same time, holding that of Madame Danglars under his own, he dragged the procureur to the plantain-tree, where the shade was thickest. All the other guests followed. "Stay," said Monte Cristo, "here, in this very spot" (and he stamped upon the ground), "I had the earth dug up and fresh mould put in, to refresh these old trees; ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... of the burrow, I reasoned, while the digger had departed in search of prey, and my surmise was soon proved to be correct, as I observed the wasp, with bobbing abdomen and flipping wings, zigzagging about the vicinity. Presently disappearing beneath a small plantain leaf, she quickly emerged, drawing behind her not a spider, as in the case of her smaller predecessor, but a big green caterpillar, nearly double her own length, and as large around as a slate-pencil—a peculiar, pungent, waspy-scented ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson

... 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. For the last three days we couldn't ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... to the house and cover the wound with salt, and remain quiet till Sneak could obtain some plantain leaves from the prairie. Joe sprang up and rushed down the hill. Sneak set out in quest of the antidote, and the rest directed their ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... The shooter grew, the broad-leaved sycamore, The barren plantain, and the walnut sound, The myrrh, that her foul sin doth still deplore, The alder owner of all waterish ground, Sweet juniper, whose shadow hurteth sore, Proud cedar, oak, the king of forests crowned; Thus fell the trees, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... illustrious Agastya with due rites. 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 Rishis began to practise ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... be good,' resumed Desiree; 'you shall all have some, but you must wait your turns. Now, big Lisa, you first. Eh! how fond you are of plantain, aren't you?' ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... 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 and chaste ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various

... the molasses reservoir. Over this reservoir is an open framework of joists, upon which stands a number of empty potting casks. Each of these has eight or ten holes bored through the bottom, and in each hole is placed the stalk of a plantain leaf. The soft, concrete mass of sugar is removed from the cooling pans in which it has been brought from the boilers and placed in the casks. The molasses then gradually drains from the crystallized portion into the reservoir below, percolating through ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various

... 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 berries of the bittersweet, the cat-brier, and the sumac, like the drupes of the early ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell

... 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, ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... Pine, Black, Pity Pine-apple, You are perfect Pine, Pitch, Philosophy Pink, Boldness Pink, Indian, Always lovely Pink, Indian, S. Aversion Pink, Mountain, Aspiring Pink, Red, Single, Pure Love Pink, Variegated, Refusal Pink, White, Ingeniousness Pink, Yellow, Disdain Plantain, What Man's Footstep Plane Tree, Genius Plum, Indian, Privation Plum Tree, Fidelity Plum, Wild, Independence Polyanthus, Pride of Riches Polyanthus, Crimson, Mystery Pomegranate, Foolishness Pomegranate, Flower, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... to be. Like a bachelor cabbage, he grovels in solitary state under our feet! We play at marbles with pomegranates, and practise tilting at the ring with citrons. Throw into the scene a few parasite and plantain trees with slender trunks and colossal leaves; fill in the foreground with gigantic ferns, aloes, and palmettoes, and the background with spotless blue; select for yourself from the nearest hot-house where specimens of exotic plants are nursed, ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... mean, and the wharves and landing places at the river's side were neither picturesque nor beautiful. The architecture of the houses, however, with porticoes, verandas, and terraces, excited my admiration. I also saw, in the distance, palm and cocoanut trees, and banana and plantain shrubs, with leaves six or eight feet long. These Various objects, with the sultry stagnation of the atmosphere, and the light and airy costume of those of the inhabitants I had seen convinced me that I was not laboring ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... miserable thatched huts with 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

... on the banks, half brown, Half green with shoots that struggle to the birth, Nibbling where early plantain-buds hang down, Scenting the sweet, sweet smell of forest earth, The deer will trace thy misty track ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa

... miracles are greater now than they were then. They have more meaning. Now are they part of some great order. They are not separate. Without moving my feet, I lay my hands on apples, Virginia creeper, asparagus, marigold, sweet sultan, oxalis, plantain, crab-grass, white clover, all growing securely in one place, and everyone like unto itself alone. Here is the everlasting miracle before my eyes, and all miracles are mysteries. Once I thought I should understand such things when I was "grown ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey

... prey to the arch enemy. History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness 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

... account may be read in the "History of the Miracles of the Patron Saint of Alca" by the Abbe Plantain: ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... not moch," he repeated sadly. But there were bits of pig-skin stewed in oil; bean-cakes; steaming buns of wheat-flour, stuffed with dice of fat pork and lumps of sugar; three-cornered rice puddings, no-me boiled in plantain-leaf wrappers; with the last of the whiskey, in green cups. While the two men ate, the shriveled outcast beamed timidly, ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout

... through its means, in addition to plenty of fish, no less than five kinds of star-fishes and twelve of crustacea, several of which are quite new, were brought ashore. Among the plants 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 (BRASSAIA ACTINOPHYLLA, the umbrella-tree) one of the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... the present age of reason and enlightenment, more 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 rosebush ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... made four of these ingenious little contrivances, and baited them with bruised pieces of the small plantain leaves that the rabbits love. Then they contemplated their work again with satisfaction. But Paul suddenly began to ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... 7th November, as the ship lay in the roads of Balasore, he and Thomas landed and "began our labours." For three hours the people of the bazaar listened with great attention to Thomas, and one prepared for them a native dinner with plantain leaf for dish, and fingers for knives and forks. Balasore—name of Krishna—was one of the first settlements of the English in North India in 1642, and there the American Baptist successors of Carey have since carried on his work. On the 11th November, after a five months' ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... 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 commercial point ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall

... 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. The plantains when green ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... and is expected to shut up her baby house and throw away her doll in a month or two more. Sweet Fern has learned to read and write, and has put on a jacket and pair of pantaloons—all of which improvements I am sorry for. Squash Blossom, Blue Eye, Plantain, and Buttercup have had the scarlet fever, but came easily through it. Huckleberry, Milkweed, and Dandelion were attacked with the whooping cough, but bore it bravely, and kept out of doors whenever the sun shone. Cowslip, during ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne



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



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