110 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 
agation of the more pulpy forms, a relatively easy method 
in the banana owing to the abundant production of suckers 
at the base of the older plant. Although the cultivated 
banana is ordinarily seedless, and in spite of the fact that 
this seedlessness has been established for a long time, the 
plants apparently are not sterile. While it is true that 
the commonly cultivated yellow banana, Musa sapientum, 
does not produce seed following pollination with its own 
pollen, it has recently been shown that when pollinated with 
the pollen of the distinct but equally seedless red banana, 
Musa sapientum var. rubra, abundant seeds are produced. 
From Indo-Malaysia it is generally supposed that man car- 
ried the banana with him on his various migrations, both 
eastward to the islands of the Pacific and perhaps to America, 
and westward to India, the Mediterranean region, and finally 
to America. The banana is a plant which lends itself admir- 
ably to such journeys, since the suckers can be dried and car- 
ried for a considerable period of time without loss of vitality. 
While little is known concerning the eastward dispersal of 
the banana from Indo-Malaysia a very interesting, though 
somewhat fragmentary, record is left of its westward journey 
by the name Misa e present generic name of the banana, 
which has come down to us through the Sanskrit “Moca,” 
the Arabic “Mauz” or “Muz,” and the Latin “Musa.” Pliny 
describes a a which is thought to have been the banana, 
the fruit of which he states was the food of the sages of 
India. It is because of this statement that the common culti- 
vated banana has been named Musa sapientum—the musa 
of the wise men. 
_ The banana is cultivated most successfully in moist trop- 
ical and subtropical regions, where it prefers a deep, rich, 
alluvial soil. In such situations it attains a height of 18-20 
or more feet in twelve months. Although apparently pos- 
sessed of a thick stout stem, the true stem is usually rep- 
resented only by a bulbous underground structure, the aerial 
trunk being made up solely of the stout overlapping and con- 
centrically arranged leaf bases which together form a firm 
trunk. At the time of flowering a tender stem is pushed up 
from the bulbous underground stem through the trunk and 
finally emerges at the top, where it bears the flowers and 
later the fruits. This flower stalk, however, is not large and 
lends little or no rigidity to the trunk. The top of the trunk 
is crowned with a rosette of enormous leaves—among the 
largest and most impressive known. 
The blossoms of the banana are disposed in clusters spirally 
arranged about the central floral axis. (See lower ged 
