x, C, 6 Teodoro: Philippine Bananas 405 
or by using other violent methods. The seeds seldom become perfect, but 
occasionally such are found when the fruit is mature. 
Ternate, gloria. 
MUSA SAPIENTUM L. var. LACATAN (Blanco). Lacatan. Plate XI, 
figs. 1-5. 
Musa paradisiaca lacatan Blanco. 
Produces from 2 to 6 rather slender flowering stems in a stool, 
characterized by black epidermis on the trunk. It reaches a 
height of from 300 to 330 cm and has a diameter of from 16 to 
19 cm at the base. 
The leaves are green throughout and thickish; the mature 
blades are from 240 to 245 cm long and from 77 to 80 cm wide, 
with petioles from 50 to 60 cm in length. 
The spike often bears from 5 to 8 hands of mature fruits. The 
time from sprouting to flowering is usually twelve months. 
The flowers (Plate XI, figs. 1, 2, and 4) are white, with greenish 
peduncle, usually 14 to a fascicle, from 7 to 7.5 cm long, the 
perigonium with shallow sinuses; the scale obovate, with narrow 
scarious margin, half as long as the perigonium, the apex sud- 
denly acute, deep-shouldered; the surface of scale deeply de- 
pressed or rounded; stamens longer than perigonium and pistil, 
all fertile; the stigma is shortly lobed. 
The fruits are long and usually slightly 4-angled, from 12 
to 16 cm in length and from 8 to 4 cm in diameter, often 14 in 
a hand, yellow when ripe, and with thick skin, but thinner than 
that of the saba. The average weight of a mature fruit is 79.2 
grams. The pulp is sweet and melting and is yellowish at 
maturity. 
This variety is one of the best sorts in common culture in the 
Philippines. 
Blanco’s description of this variety is translated as follows:** 
Flowers: Each bract covers fourteen small hermaphrodite flowers. Co- 
rolla: The superior lip with five teeth; the three alternate ones larger. 
The inferior lip projects ventrally terminating in two low cuts and a small 
horn and a row of small depressions. Stamens five, with rudimentary 
sixth, and seldom six perfect. Stigma manifestly split into two parts; 
the one subdivided into two lobules, and the other into three or four. Fruit 
with the terminal part obtuse, and with angles like those in the preceding 
species, but they almost disappear at maturity, crowned with the flower 
which persists until the ripening of the fruit. 
This species is native in Pampanga, and about forty years ago it was 
not known in Manila. An Augustinian priest promoted its propagation 
throughout Bulacan Province, and to-day it is very common. The fruit 
becomes as large as the variety gloria; but its flesh is denser, more con- 
"Fl. Filip. ed. 2 (1906) 170. 
