CoLENSo. — Oil Four Notable Foreign Plants. 335 



Hence the botanical name of Musa sajnejitium. Musa (generic) 

 is from the Arabic mouz or mauioz, which we find was given to 

 it as early as the thirteenth century ; the second specific name 

 of paradisiaca comes from the ridiculous hypothesis which 

 made the banana figure in the story of Adam and Eve. It is, 

 however, a curious fact that the Hebrews and the ancient 

 Egyptians did not know this Indian plant. 



3. From its many varieties or sorts — upwards of sixty — all 

 forming but a single species. The celebrated botanist De 

 Candolle says : " There is an immense number of varieties of 

 the banana in the south of Asia, both on the islands and on 

 the continent. The cultivation of these varieties dates in 

 India, in China, and in the Archipelago from an epoch impos- 

 sible to realise. It even spread formerly into the islands of 

 the Pacific, and to the west coast of Africa. Lastly, the 

 varieties bore distinct names in the most separate Asiatic 

 languages, such as Chinese, Sanskrit, and Malay. All this 

 indicates great antiquity of culture, consequently a primitive 

 existence in Asia, and a diffusion contemporary with, or even 

 anterior to, that of the human races." Cook found it largely 

 cultivated at Tahiti. The accurate and observing Parkinson 

 (Sir Joseph Banks's botanical draughtsman), who was with 

 Cook on his first voyage, says of it : " The well-known 

 tropical fruit called plantains and bananas, of which there is 

 a great variety in these islands ; they reckon more than 

 twenty sorts, which differ in shape and taste. Some of these 

 are for eating raw, and others best boiled, and will serve 

 instead of bread. They plant them in a rich soil, and take 

 great pains in their cultivation. They call them meiya " (now 

 meia). The celebrated Peruvian author Garcilasso de la 

 Vega* says distinctly, " At the time of the Incas, maize, 

 quinoa,f the potato, and bananas formed the staple food of the 

 natives." He describes the Musa of the valleys in the Andes, 

 distinguishing the rarer species with a small fruit and a sweet 

 aromatic flavour (the dominico) from the common banana, or 

 arton. The botanist Desvaux, in a remarkable work pub- 

 lished in 1814, studied the specific question. He gives it as 

 his opinion that all the bananas cultivated for their fruit are 

 of the same species. In this species he distinguishes forty- 

 four varieties, which he arranges in two groups — the large- 

 fruited bananas (Tin. to 15in. long) and the small-fruited 

 bananas (lin. to 6in.), commonly called fig-bananas. | K. 



* Descendant of the Incas, who lived from 1530 to 1568. A copy of 

 his scarce work is in cur Institute library. 



t Quinoa, a small, insignificant plant, a species of Chenopodiu^n 

 {C. quinoa, Willd.). The leaves are dressed as spinach, and the small 

 seeds are still esteemed at Lima. 



I To a wild fertile species found in Asia, Desvaux gave the name of 

 paradisiaca. 



