404 The Philippine Journal of Science 1915 
tip, 138 cm long and 3 cm in diameter. Fruits are arranged in 
loose order and at various angles. The pulp is firm and red- 
dish yellow when ripe. The skin is yellow when ripe and of 
medium thickness—that is, less in thickness than in the bongolan. 
The average weight of a mature fruit is 46.72 grams. 
Like other bananas, such as the lacatan and the veinte cohol, 
the fruits of this variety are eaten without cooking, but will serve 
equally well if made into figs. 
MUSA SAPIENTUM L. var. TERNATENSIS (Blanco). Ternate, gloria. 
Plate VII, figs. 1-5. 
Musa paradisiaca ternatensis Blanco. 
Produces only a few flowering stems in a stool, usually 3; the 
trunk is large, cylindrical, brownish, with bloches of red and 
black, reaching a height of 390 cm and a diameter of 24 em at 
the base. Leaves large, broad and green throughout; mature 
blades from 210 to 220 cm long and from 60 to 65 cm wide; 
petioles from 50 to 55 cm long. 
The spike usually bears from 14 to 18 mature fruits. 
The flowers (Plate VII, figs. 1, 2, and 5) are 7.5 cm long, with 
yellowish perigonium and white scale, the peduncles ringed with 
purplish color; the scale is ovate, with scarious margin and long, 
narrow, acute tip, rounded on the surface, half as long as peri- 
gonium; stamens longer than pistil, anthers shorter than fila- 
ments; the stigma elongate-oblong. 
The fruits are of medium size, slightly tapering toward the 
tip and wider toward the base, with very short pedicels. The 
skin is thick, like that of the saba. The flesh is yellowish, coarse, 
fibrous, and with strong banana odor. The average weight of a 
mature fruit is 97.98 grams. 
Blanco’s description of this variety is translated as follows:*° 
Flowers: Each bract covers something like twenty small hermaphrodite 
flowers. The lower petal terminates in a depression on the exterior part; 
the upper one as in the variety compressa. Stamens number five with- 
out the rudimentary sixth. Fruit, with three very prominent angles and 
sometimes four or five, crowned with the flower that persists up to the 
maturity of the fruit. This species grows to the same height as the 
preceding one. Although in appearance one is scarcely distinguishable 
from the other, the natives know how to tell them by the color of the 
leaves. The fruit is more than 5 inches long, and it is one of the most 
delicious if allowed to mature on the stem. This seldom occurs, because 
the native makes haste to convert it into money, even hastening its matur- 
ity by immersing the fruit in sea water or hanging it in a hole covered 
with leaves, or placing it without cutting in a sack with straw or leaves, 
” F]. Filip. ed. 2 (1845) 170. 
