The screw-pines (_Pandanaceæ_) are not "pines" at all, any more than "pine-apples" are pines. They are, indeed, trees or shrubs, which, from one point of view, may be regarded as gigantic bulrushes. The flowers of certain species are in some places eaten as the solid equivalent of a love potion. Allied to the plants of the last-mentioned order are the palms (_Palmaceæ_), which are the first really large trees we come to after leaving the tree-ferns and the gymnosperms. Amongst the more noteworthy palms may be mentioned the palmetto (_Chamærops_) of Southern Europe (a summer ornament of our public gardens), the date palm, the areca palm, the sago palm, the cocoa palm, the rattan palm--a natural cordage--and _Seaforthia_, so remarkable for its graceful and elegant form.
Next may be enumerated the great order of lilies (_Liliaceæ_), to which the homely and useful onion, leek, garlic, chive, and asparagus belong, no less than a multitude of lovely flowers.
The New Zealand flax (_Phormium tenax_), and all the magnificent yuccas and aloes, together with our English butcher's broom (_Ruscus aculeatus_), which has not a little botanical interest (as being the only British shrub which belongs to the group called "Monocotyledons") also belong to this order. Closely allied to the lilies are the amaryllids (_Amaryllidaceæ_), amongst which are the agaves, with their gigantic flower stems, sometimes forty feet high, supporting a multitudinous crop of flowers, the product and termination of a life.
To these follow the pine-apples (_Bromeliaceæ_) all originally from America, the useful bananas and plantains (_Musaceæ_), and the ginger-plants (_Zingiberaceæ_), tropical herbs, generally of great beauty.
The underground parts of certain tropical plants (_Dioscoreaceæ_) are known as "yams." A representative of this order exists in England in the climbing black bryony (_Tamus_) of our hedges, and to the same group belongs the very singularly stemmed elephant's foot, or tortoise-tree (_Testudinaria elephantipes_). The last-named plant is a native of the Cape of Good Hope, where it has been known as Hottentot's bread, because the soft interior of its swollen base was at one time eaten by the natives of that region, who have, however, now abandoned it to the baboons.