796 ON THE VOLCANO OF TAAL, 



suspected of being of American origin, the other would belong, 

 for instance, to the Malay Archipelago or to China, and the third 

 to India. On the contrary, all the varieties are geographically 

 intermixed, and the two, which are most widely diffused in 

 America, differ sensibly the one from the other, and each is 

 confounded with or approaches very nearly to Asiatic varieties." 

 De Candolle, Origin of Cultivated Plants, p. 304. 



It may throw some light on this controversy to state that we 

 have three species of Musa in Australia, one of which is very 

 doubtfully separated from Musa 2}(i'>'adisiaca, but whether they 

 are distinct or not there can be no question that the manner in 

 which the wild banana grows in the jungles of north-east Australia, 

 the Malay Archipelago and the Philippines, is precisely the same. 

 As one ascends the lower slopes of any of the mountains in the 

 Malay Peninsula the jungle becomes almost exclusively an under- 

 growth of wild bananas with tall forest trees overhead. I could 

 never see any difference between tins species and the mode of its 

 occurrence, and il/. hanksii of Queensland. There are two other 

 species in the colony, namely, M. hillii, and M. fitzalani. 



It would scarcely be believed to what an extend Musa occupies 

 the jungle in many parts of the Malay Archipelago and the 

 Philippines, or in the latter islands its supreme importance as an 

 article of export. There is a village in the Island of Panay in 

 the province of Iloilo named Abaca, which, as already stated, is 

 the native name for the banana which produces the Manila hemp. 

 This village has been so named from the excellent quality of its 

 hemp, which is said to be prepared by allowing the fibre to lie in 

 sand for a time. The species has been called Musa abaca, and Musa 

 textilis by botanists, the name Abaca belonging to the Tagalo and 

 Visayan languages, while the Spaniards call it Arbol de Cariamo 

 or hemp tree. In the Calamianes group and in the Cuyos the 

 natives meet on Sunday mornings under a clump of cocoa-nut 

 trees, where fruits, vegetables, fish and very little poultry are 

 offered for sale. Amongst the articles are large hanks of hemp fibre 

 almost as fine and quite as glossy as silk. This is sold as thread, 



