336 Transactions. — Botany. 



Brown, in 1818, maintains the same as all belonging to one 

 species, and so brought back Desvaux's second species (M. 

 imradisiaca) to the one earlier-named one {M. sainentium) . 



We, however, here in New Zealand only know the banana 

 as an imported dessert fruit, and, as such, scarcely ever in per- 

 fection as fully ripe, seeing what we receive from the tropical 

 isles of the Pacific are always obliged to be sent to us in a 

 green or unripe state ; and, then, of its many varieties we obtain 

 (I believe) but one. It is far more extensively used as a vege- 

 table (as well as a fruit) in the countries where it is grown as 

 an introduced plant, particularly in the West Indies, for in- 

 stance, where, while unripe, it is said to be excellent boiled as 

 a vegetable, or sliced and fried as fritters for breakfast. 

 Eoasted and flavoured with the juice of oranges, or lemons 

 and sugar, and made into a kind of coynpote, it is very choice ; 

 in some countries the fruit is dried, in which state it can be 

 preserved for months, or, if spices and sugar are added, it is 

 formed into a paste quite capable of keeping good for years. 

 The mealier ones, by being oven- or sun-dried, and then 

 pounded, can be readily converted into a nutritious flour, which 

 contains not only starch, but protein, or flesh-forming material. 

 Finally, the "merissa" beer, which is drunk in prodigious 

 quantities all over the Upper Nile and Lake Country in Africa, 

 is the fermented juice of the banana. Even the Mahdi has 

 had to wink at its consumption ; while a recent traveller 

 doubts whether he ever saw so many tipsy people as in a 

 certain district of Africa. The banana will even yield medi- 

 cine, for the juice of the stem— the spongy pith of which is 

 also highly nutritious — is a useful astringent and diaphoretic. 

 Taken internally, the leaves are said to be valuable against 

 dropsy, and are often used externally in scalds and ulcers. 

 The stems are in Tonquin burned, and the ashes employed for 

 purifying sugar ; while all parts of the plant abound in a fibre 

 which has never been systematically used except in small 

 quantities. In Dacca the country people make from it the 

 string of the bow with which they lease cotton ; and in some 

 of the Indian islands a cloth is woven from the banana-thread 

 which is not much inferior to that made from the abaca, a 

 kind of banana that yields the well-known Manila hemp ; and 

 the large fronds are employed not only for packing, and as 

 plates for holding food, but in roofing native huts. 



The banana, we learn from a United States ofiicial report, 

 is so popular a fruit in that country that during August and 

 September 78,000 tons were imported, while, on the other 

 hand, its culture is extending with such rapidity that before 

 long the entire home demand will be met by Florida, Mis- 

 sissippi, and other suitable areas of the Eepublic. It is, how- 

 ever, doubtful whether the warmest portions of the United 



