Edible Plant Species

Gigantochloa apus Kurz. Gramineae. BAMBOO.
Java.
The young shoots are used as a vegetable.

G. ater Kurz. BAMBOO.
Java.
This bamboo in Java attains a height of 70 feet and is extensively cultivated. The young shoots afford a culinary vegetable.

G. robusta Kurz. BAMBOO.
Malay.
This bamboo attains the height of a hundred feet. The young shoots are used as a vegetable.

G. verticillata Munro. BAMBOO.
Java.
The plant grows to a height of 120 feet, with stems nearly a foot thick. This is one of the most extensively cultivated of ail Asiatic bamboos. The young shoots are used as a culinary vegetable.

Gigartina lichnoides Harvey. Algae. CEYLON MOSS.
Ceylon moss is a seaweed much used in the East as a nutritive article of food and for giving consistence to other dishes. It is of a very gelatinous nature and when boiled down is almost wholly convertible into jelly.

Ginkgo biloba Linn. Coniferae (Ginkgoaceae). GINKO. MAIDENHAIR TREE.
China and Japan.
The fruit of the ginko is sold in the markets in all Chinese towns and is not unlike dried almonds, only whiter, fuller and more round. The natives seem very fond of it, although it is rarely eaten by Europeans. In Japan, the seeds furnish an oil used for eating and burning. The fruit of the maiden-hair tree is called in China pa-kwo. The Chinese consume the nuts of this tree at weddings, the shells being dyed red; they have a fishy taste. This tree is largely cultivated as an ornamental in Europe, Asia and North America.