BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 211 



and a few perfect fruits, under the name of '' Amett,'' of a species of 

 Banana, much used as an article of food in Abyssinia; yet it is not, 

 as in other countries^ the fruit which is eaten, but the stem or trunk. 

 The fruit indeed is small (compared with other Bananas or Plantains), 

 rather pyriforra than oblong, with a very uneven surface, varying in 

 shape according to the number of seeds within, including little or almost 

 no pulp, and terminated with the withered floral coverings. The seeds 

 are nearly as large as small chestnuts, and so unlike what we had be- 

 lieved those of any Mum to be, that but for Mr. Plowden's authority 

 we should not have believed them to be of that genus. However, as 

 Banana-seeds we planted them, and Bananas they proved, very different 

 certainly from Musa paradisiaca or M, mpientum^ and clearly the En- 

 se^e of Bruce's Travels (see English ed. 8vo. vol. vii. p. 149, and Atlas, 

 Tables 8 and 9). This Ensete is a plant totally unknown in botany 

 or in books, save from what Bruce has written about it. No specimen 

 or any further information seems ever to have come to Europe till now. 

 Gmelin indeed has (Syst. Nat. p. 567) been pleased to call it Musa 

 Emetey and given a brief but most unsatisfactory character, entirely 

 drawn from Bruce's figure ; but Bruce himself stoutly maintained that 

 " any one who would consider it a species of Musa, does so without 

 any sort of reason." Tet the chief characteristics he gives to prove it 

 is not a Banana or Plantain — for these were the only Musas known to 

 Bruce — are marks common to both. 



_ I a Musa, without doubt however, Bruce, botli in his figure 

 and description, represents enough to prove that his Emete is very dif- 

 ferent, specifically, from the common Mmas; and our plants, now 4-6 

 feet high, further prove it to be so. We shall anxiously watch for the 

 fructifying of our plants, and in the meantime we will give all that is 

 worth extracting from Bruce's history, and then notice its affinity with 

 some more recently discovered Indian species. The Emete* is consi- 

 dered to be "a native of Naree, and to grow in the great swamps and 

 marshes in that country, formed by rivers rising there, which have little 

 level to run to either ocean. It is said that the Galla, when they mi- 

 grated into Abyssinia, brought for their particular use the Cofl-ec-tree 

 and the Emete, the use of neither of which was before known. The 



Sciences Naturelles 



V 



nunciatiou to Ensete. 



