BY THE REV. J. E. TENISON-WOODS, F.G.S., &C. 793 



at the southern extremity of Siam. Thwaites* saw the 

 variety M. scqnentum in the rocky forests of the centre of Ceylon, 

 and does not hesitate to pronounce it the original stock of 

 cultivated bananas. Sir Joseph Hookerf and Thompson found it 

 wild at Khasia. 



The facts are quite diiFerent in America. The wild banana 

 has been seen nowhere except in Barbados,; but here it is a tree of 

 which the fruit does not ripen, and which is consequently in all 

 probability the result of cultivated varieties of which the seed is 

 not abundant. Sloane's toild lAantain^ appears to be a plant very 

 different to the Musa. The varieties which are supposed to oe 

 possibly indigenous in America are only two, and as a rule far 

 fewer varieties are grown than in Asia. The culture of the 

 banana may be said to be recent in the greater part of America, 

 for it dates from but little more than three centuries. Piso|| says 

 positively that it was imported into Brazil, and has no Brazilian 

 name. He does not say whence it came. We have seen that, ac- 

 cording to Oviedo, the species was brought to San Domingo from 

 the Canai-ies. This fact and the silence of Hernandez, generally 

 so accurate about the useful plants, wild or cultivated in Mexico, 

 convince me that at the time of the discovery of America the 

 banana did not exist in the whole of the eastern part of the 

 continent. 



Did it exist then in the western part on the .shores of the 

 Pacific 1 This seems very unlikely when we reflect that communi- 

 cation was easy between the two coasts towai'ds the Isthmus of 

 Panama, and that, before the arrival of the Europeans, the natives 

 had been active in difi'using throughout America, useful plants 

 like the manioc, maize, and potato. The banana which they have 

 prized so highly for three centuries, which is so easily multiplied 

 by suckers, and whose appearance must strike the least observant,. 



* Thwaites, Enum. PI. Cey. p. 321. 



t Aitchison, Catal. oj Pimjah, p. 147. 



+ Hughes, Barh. p. IS'2, Maycock, Fl. Barh. p. 396. 



§ Sloane, Jamaica, II. p. 148 . 



II Piso, edit. 1648, Hist. Nat. p. 75. 



