So in addition to the chickens living next door to me in Kranuan, Thailand, there was a banana ... bush, maybe? It was -- and still is, I suppose, a little short and spread out to be a tree. But then I suppose the definition of tree may not actually include height, despite what dogmatists may think. Well, let us find out. ...
How about that. Both Webster's and Oxford dictionaries mention banana "trees" in their respective definitions. To wit: "(in general use) any bush, shrub, or herbaceous plant with a tall erect stem, e.g. a banana plant" constitutes a tree (from Oxford Dictionaries). Even Wikipedia says "tree" is a really broad term: "Although 'tree' is a term of common parlance, there is no universally recognised precise definition of what a tree is, either botanically or in common language." Although it does admit a tree is "any plant with the general form of an elongated stem, or trunk, which supports the photosynthetic leaves or branches at some distance above the ground."
Well, that's enough word-nerding for today. Maybe the banana tree was just young. Anyway, it wasn't my first banana tree; my first also involved my first trip to Thailand. But unlike my first tokay, which was far to the south in Kanchanaburi, this was north in Nong Khai, right across the Mekong River from Laos. Unlike my Kranuan tree, this actually constituted a tree, albeit a small one.
Whatever one may think about bananas and trees and their placement on the botanical spectrum, banana trees as seen for the first time were particularly exotic to this boy from Ohio. If I may resort to cliche: "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas (or Ohio) any more."
Besides bananas -- not to mention chickens -- here are a few of the other plants that grew either next door or along the brick wall next to the driveway.
Tah for now ...
