114 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 
fruit is made into banana wine, principally for local con- 
sumption; a part of the unmarketable fruit, too, is used in 
the manufacture of banana whiskey and alcohol, though a 
considerable portion is still lost or utilized only as cattle food. 
The bananas cultivated in the western hemisphere are al- 
most exclusively the several varieties of Musa sapientum, and 
in the principal producing countries—Jamaica, Costa Rica, 
and elsewhere—the so-called Jamaican, or Gros Michel, 
banana predominates. In the Canary Islands, however, which 
furnish most of the fruit for European markets, the dwarf 
Chinese banana, Musa Cavendishii, is by far the more com- 
mon. Specimens of both of these cultivated species are 
growing in the banana dome at the Garden, as well as a very 
large plant of the red banana, M. sapientum var. rubra, 
—the latter the largest specimen in the collection. Besides 
these seedless species the collection also includes specimens of 
M. Martini, M. rhodochlamys, M. Arnoldiana, and M. Gil- 
letii, the latter two being African seed-bearing species grown 
from seed. 
Of the interesting plants nearly related to the banana 
may be mentioned Calathea Princeps and C. crotalifera, speci- 
mens of both of which are growing in the aroid house. 
C. crotalifera is commonly called the rattle-snake plant on 
account of the floral spike with peculiar dry overlapping 
bracts. The specimen in the Garden is at present in flower 
and shows the “rattles” admirably. Specimens of Strelitzia 
Nicolai, from Africa and Australia, and S. Reginae, from 
South Africa, the latter the so-called “bird of paradise 
flower,” will be found in the epiphytic orchid house. At- 
tention was called to the latter plant in the February, 1913, 
number of the ButteTin. Small specimens of Heliconia 
Bihai and H. brasiliensis, forms of wild plantain, as well as 
a collection of fancy-leaved marantas and calatheas, will 
also be found in the same house. In the palm house of the 
new conservatory are specimens of Strelitzia Augusta and 
Ravenala madagascariensis, both large-leaved plants which 
might easily be mistaken for banana plants. The latter is the 
traveler’s tree, probably so called because of the water stored 
up in the long hollow leaf-stalks. Closely related to the 
banana and also of vast economic importance, but not rep- 
resented in the Garden collection at the present time, is Musa 
textilis, the plant which yields Manila hemp. 
FLORAL DISPLAY 
Owing to the Quarter Centennial Celebration of the Or- 
ganization of the Board of Trustees of the Garden, on Octo- 
