BY N. DE MIKLOUHO-MACLAY. 355 



APPENDIX. 



EDIBLE FRUITS FROM THE MACLAY-COAST, 

 NEW GUINEA. 



By Baron Ferd. von Mueller, K.C.M.G., M.D., F.R.S., etc. 



From notes and drawings furnished by my distinguished friend, 

 I am able to add to his account of Mnsa Maclayi. It belongs to 

 the series of species, which in M. uranosco2)os has its longest known 

 representative. The flower stalk is upright or but slightly curved ; 

 bracts are red-bi'ownish ; the flowers occur about eight together ; 

 the lobes of the calyx measui^e neai^ly an inch in length, the fruits 

 are about three inches long, but hardly more than one inch broad, 

 faintly angular ; the seeds are irregular in shape and often com- 

 pressed. This Mttsa occurs on swamps and along streams. 



This seems an apt opportunity for referring to an allied species : 

 Musa Seemanni of Fiji, from whence it was first recorded by Dr. 

 Seemann as M. uranosco-pos (Fl. Vit., 290.) Specimens kindly 

 transmitted by the hon. J. B. Thurston, C.M.G., enable me to 

 ofi"er the following notes on the Fiji plant. Flower stalk erect, about 

 four feet long and to tour inches thick ; the bracts imbricate, the 

 longest measuring fully one foot ; total fruit spike about 1^ feetlong, 

 forming fascicles moderately crowded on all sides ; fruits ellipsoid- 

 ovate, remarkably blunt, 3 to 4 inches long, when aged blackish- 

 brown outside and shining, with three of the longitudinal angles 

 more prominent ; pulp very succulent, of not unpleasant taste^ 

 from brown-yellow to vitellinous in color ; pericarp thinly coria- 

 ceous ; ovules numerous, turbinate-discoid, reaching in the ripe 

 fruit not to beyond one lines length, outside blackish-grey. This 

 species difiers from Musa Hillii already in having the fruit-fascicles 



