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302 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. CIIAP. XI. altogether one of the most remarkable that has been discovered in Madagascar. And the extent to which it prevails may be inferred from the native name, ravinala, by which it was de signated by Sonnerat, its discoverer. Eavinala is literally leaf of the forest, as if it was the leaf by which the forest was characterised, which is the fact where it abounds, though in many parts it is not met with at all. The tree rises from the ground with a thick succulent stem like that of the plantain, or the larger species of strelitzia, to both of which it bears a strong resemblance. It sends out from the centre of the stem long broad leaves like those of the plantain, only less fragile, and rising, not round the stalk, but in two lines on opposite sides, so that as the leaves increase, and the lower ones droop at the end, or extend horizontally, the tree presents the appearance of a large open fan. When the stem rises ten or twelve feet high, the lower part of the outer covering becomes hard and dry, like the bark of the cocoa-nut tree. Many of the trees in this region were at least thirty feet from the ground to the lowest leaves. I frequently counted from twenty to twenty-four leaves on a single tree, the stalk of each leaf being six or eight feet long, and the broad leaf itself ’ four or six feet more. The whole of these twenty-four bright green gigantic leaves, spread out like a fan at the top of a trunk thirty feet high, presented a spectacle as impressive as it was to me rare and beautiful; and in this part of the country they were the most conspicuous objects for miles together, and were it not that these vast bright green shining leaves are slit on each side by the winds, and so flutter in smaller portions with the passing breeze, the prevalence of this tree would impart a degree of almost inconceivable magnificence to the vegetation of the country. In the fan-like head of the traveller’s tree, there were generally three or four branches of seed pods. The parts of