Bud- Variation in Bananas 1 ). 



In my garden there is a large plant (planted about eleven years ago) of a 

 variety of banana, distinguished by purplish stems and petioles, red fruits, and 

 by a very peculiar flavour of the latter. From the centre of this plant, covered 

 by the rotten stems of former years, there are now growing green stems, with 

 green petioles; one of them has already produced fruits, which were green when 

 immature, and yellow when ripe, and the flavour of which I found to be but 

 slightly altered. All the young stems growing from the circumference of the 

 plant are purplish. 



May not many of the varieties of bananas have been produced by bud- 

 variation ? 



Itajahy, April 7. 1879. 



i) Nature 18/9. Vol. XX. p. 146. 



