purple sugarcane. Let’s fill a gourd of this natural water To slake the thirst of the people.

The classification7 of these and other plants8 by the Vietnamese as male or female may depend on the similarity of their shape or general appearance to human sexual organs or erogenous zones (serpentaria chóc, and flamboyant leaf vông); to texture (jackfruit , and lime-paste vôi); to colour-light colours tend to be female (apricot mai), darker ones male (prune mận)—the open, red flower of the flamboyant (vông) and the fruit of the persimmon are patently female; so too are the banian (đa) leaf and flower female, though well-experienced; banian fruit and tamarind (me) fruit, on the contrary, are male.