588 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XV. 



The plant was brought from Khandalla by Mr. W. S. Millard, one of 

 the Honorary Secretaries of the Bombay Natural History Society, in 

 June 1900, and it flowered for the first time early in October 1903. 



In the lower parts of the Thana District Musa superba is found 

 generally in rocky ravines and on rocky hill slopes in a forest. 



In some instances it grows in the forks of trees.* 



Its existence in such places, and especially the latter, needs an explana- 

 tion . 



The monkey is responsible for its presence there. He is very fond of 

 the fruit and is mainly responsible for the distribution of the seeds, which 

 are very hard and comparatively heavy and black.f 



When he eats the fruit while perched on a tree the hard black seeds 

 inside are discarded and in falling either drop to the ground or lodge in 

 a tree. Those seeds which fall to earth are washed down into the water 

 courses and rocky ravines, while others fall in the crevices of rocks on 

 the hill slopes, a locality which monkeys usually haunt. 



The plant possesses the property of economising moisture to the 

 greatest possible extent by storing the same in its succulent leafstalks 

 and excavated sheaths which enables it to grow and thrive in arid 

 situations, such as the rocky localities alluded to, where moisture in the 

 soil for the greater part of the year is entirely absent. This property 

 is possessed by many desert and "rock" plants, as is well known, 

 particularly so by the common prickly pear which may be seen growing 

 and flourishing on the summit of stone walls in and about Bombay. 



Its ability to do this rests mainly in the fact that the water taken up 

 by the roots, instead of being liberated by transpiration (as in the case of 

 plants growing in ordinary situations) from the parts above the surface 

 of the soil, is retained and re-utilized in the extreme dry season to keep 

 the plant alive. In order to further obstruct transpiration from the 

 exposed surfaces, spines are developed instead of leaves. 



A detailed account of the manner in which desert and "rock" plants 

 adapt themselves to their environment in this way and the causes of 

 their morphological features may be seen by a reference to Rev. G. 



* Instances of this have been met with in the southern side of Mahnli Hill in 

 the Shahpur Taluka and in the Kashti Forest, Mokbada. In the latter case it was 

 Mr. Clayton, I.C.S., who drew my attention to the interesting phenomenon. 



j " Kal Manjur," a species of wild cat (black), is also very fond of the fruit and 

 distributes the seeds by swallowing and excreting them. 



