This is what I read about the Travellers Tree in the book of the same name by Patrick Leigh Fermor. "The Traveller's Tree like all the human beings who now inhabit the Antilles was originally a stranger to these regions."
"It is a remarkable tree native to Madagascar and Reunion with a straight stem reaching thirty feet in height,and bearing at the top a number of large long-stalked leaves which spread vertically like a fan. The leaf has a large sheath at the base in which water collects in such quantity as to yield a copious draught- hence the name.The plant is known botanically as the RARENALA MADAGASCARIENSIS"
The illustration that we use was created by the artist A. COSTA who took the photographs for Leigh Fermor's book which was first published in December 1950.
The book is an account of a journey-by steamer and aeroplane and sailing ship- through the long island chain of the West Indies and the idiosyncratic and highly dissimilar civilizations that have sprung up amongst the Caribbean Islands.
It was reviewed in the Observer by Harold Nicolson "Being
a natural romantic, having in his veins the ardour of the buccaneer,possessing
as he does a vivacious sympathy for all those who are ill-adjusted,
lonley or repressed he was able to probe the hidden recesses of
this mixed civilization and to present us with a picture of the
Indies more penetrating and original than any that has been presented
before."
