suppose it meant that the extraordinary inundation had goné so 
far as not only to destroy the wheat, but also to retard or hurt. 
the growth of the Ensete, which was to supply its place. I do 
likewise conjecture that the bundle of branches of a plant, which 
Horus Apollo says the ancient Egyptians produced as the food 
on which they lived before tne discovery of wheat, was not the 
Papyrus, as he imagines, but this plant, the Hnsete, which re- 
tired to its native Ethiopia upon a substitute being found better 
adapted to the climate of Egypt.” 
For all the above information we are mainly indebted to the 
labours of Bruce. 
In the previous notice of our Hnsete in the ‘ Kew Garden Mis- 
cellany,’ /. c., we remarked that, of the described species of JZusa, 
this has perhaps the nearest affinity with the Musa superba, 
Roxb. Coromand. Pl. v. 3. t. 323, and of our Bot. Mag. t. 3849 
and 3850, a native of the southern peninsula of India; but be- 
sides the difference in the inflorescence, the seeds are quite of an- 
other form, size, and character: in WZ. superba the seeds are nu- 
merous, arranged in two rows in each of the three cells ; the plant 
is very different, for the trunk is quite conical, only three feet 
high, yet seven and a half feet in circumference close to the 
ground. Again, J. Hnsete in some respects approaches J. 
ylauca, Pl. Corom. v. 3. t. 300, a native of Pegu, but the stem 
and foliage do not correspond, and the latteris of a remarkably 
glaucous hue, as indicated by the specific name; whereas our 
plant has bright yellow-green foliage, and the costa deep purple- 
brown on the under side. The fruit of all three resemble each other 
in general form and size, and all are seed-bearing, scarcely pulpy, 
and uneatable. They produce no suckers from the root, like the 
true Bananas, consequently our dependence for the perpetuity of 
the species in our stoves must be on seed : and, fortunately, al- 
though our first flowering-plant yielded no seed, our second one 
has (while we are writing, December, 1860,) been found to ripen 
three fruits, and the seeds are quite perfect. 
Descr. The general aspect of our plant is quite that of our 
usual cultivated Bananas, with esculent fruits, but the height is 
much greater, and the stem much swollen at the base. In five 
years in one case, in another in three, of our flowering speci- 
mens, they have attained their full size, nearly forty feet to the 
summit of the foliage. We have measured the blades, seventeen 
to eighteen feet long; they are firm and rigid, not easily tearing 
transversely, and they are erecto-patent ; this position is perhaps 
due to the shortness of the contracted part of the petioles, all 
below that expands into the huge sheathing amplexicaul bases, 
an inch and a half thick and two feet broad, constituting the stem ; 
the latter is sensibly swollen below the middle, biggest at the 
