ASSYRIAN MONUMENTS. 19 



neglected. For in Lucknow natives say that when left 

 in one place and not shifted, and well manured, the 

 plantain, as some call it in English, seeds. I have 

 seen plants of it in one of the king's gardens, after 

 the capture of Lucknow, in 1858, which had been 

 neglected for several years. Their fruit was full of 

 seeds and had little or no pulp. This seedful fruit 

 natives call ' Kdrnlr.' 



So that its having been found by botanists in 

 various places, wild and producing seed, may not 

 necessarily mean that it got there by transportation 

 of seed. My experience of this plant is that it is very 

 hardy in a climate that will suit it. 



When once introduced and established, it is diffi- 

 cult to eradicate, and that where found growing wild 

 it may have been originally brought there as offsets 

 by settlers, who afterwards may have died off, or 

 migrated, or have been exterminated, while their banana 

 plants remained there, and eventually, through neglect, 

 produced fruit full of seeds, which may have helped 

 further multiplication and dissemination of the plant 

 by birds, etc. 



It should be noted that although usually the culti- 

 vated banana is seedless, occasionally a seed or two 

 are met with in the pulpy fruit. 



Whatever may have been its origin in the wild 

 state, the following points appear tolerably certain : — 



