278 



Thp: Journal of Heredity 



Thus the fruit, carrying with it the 

 name which may have come all the way 

 from its first station in the Indo- 

 Malayan region, reached the Mediter- 

 ranean and — after the colonization of 

 those islands — the Canaries. From 

 the Grand Canary it was introduced to 

 the New World in 1516, according to 

 the very definite statement of Captain 

 Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes,'^ 

 who heard the story "from many 

 people." He ascribes the introduction 

 to Hispaniola (Santo Domingo) to the 

 "re\'erendo padre fray Thomas de 

 Bcrlanga, de la Orden de los Predica- 

 dores"; "and from here," he continues, 

 "it has spread to the other villages of 

 the island, and to all the other islands 

 populated by Christians, and has been 

 carried to the mainland; and in every 

 region w^here it has been established, it 

 has yielded excellent results." 



INTRODUCTION TO AMERICA. 



This circumstantial account has 

 always failed to satisfy a certain number 

 of botanists, whose belief that the 

 banana was found here long before the 

 arrival of Columbus is based partly on 

 tradition, more on the belief that it 

 could never have spread so rapidly in 

 the years following the conquest, as to 

 account for its abundance in the many 

 localities where it is reported by early 

 writers; partly on the large number of 

 distinct varieties to be found in the 

 tropical parts of America, and partly 

 on the finding of leaves resembling those 

 of the banana, in pre-Columbian graves 

 in South America. The first considera- 

 tion seems to have weighed heavily with 

 von Humboldt, who did not hesitate to 

 declare the fruit a native of America, 

 saying, "It is a constant tradition, in 

 Mexico and on all the mainland, that 

 the platano arton and the Domenico'^ 

 were cultivated there long before Euro- 

 peans arrived." Most of the botanists 

 who have studied the subject have not 

 considered tradition a sufficient ground 

 for judgment: De Candolle contented 



himself with a verdict for "a pro- 

 digious antiquity of cultivation; in 

 consequence, a primitive existence in 

 Asia and a diflfusion synchronous with 

 that of the races of mankind, or even 

 earlier." 



QUESTION STILL DISPUTED. 



As to the evidence afforded by the 

 exhumation of leaves, those who uphold 

 the Asiatic origin of the banana contend 

 that knowledge that these leaves were 

 really Musa is lacking, and that they 

 were more probably leaves of some such 

 plant as Hcliconia, a South American 

 relative. O. F. Cook has brought the 

 case prominently forward during the 

 last few years by championing the 

 theory of American origin, but the 

 majority of writers on the subject are 

 still on the other side. 



Whether the Musa, as we know it 

 today, was actually cultivated by the 

 natives of the Spanish Main when Col- 

 umbus found them, there seems reason 

 to believe that it or a closely related 

 plant existed on this continent several 

 millions of years ago. Researches of 

 paleontologists in North America have 

 resulted in the identification of a genus 

 which has been named Mu.sophyllum, 

 and bears extraordinary resemblance to 

 the bananas, although of course there is 

 not sufficient evidence available to 

 decide the exact degree of relationship. 

 The best known of these finds in the 

 deposits of the Eocene epoch are from 

 the vicinity of the Yellowstone National 

 Park. Leo Lcsquercux, who described" 

 Musophylliim complicatum as a new 

 species in 187vS, writes: 



"Though the specimens representing 

 this species are very numerous and 

 very large, I covild not obtain one show- 

 ing exactly the size and form of these 

 leaves. They appear either folded 

 around a thick stem, from which they 

 (li\-erge, or on both sides of a thick 

 rachis, extending along it like two wings, 

 two or three centimeters wide on each 

 side. From the fact that large speci- 



"Oviedn, Hist. (icn. y Nat. dc las Indias, Lib. XXX, caj). 1, pub. in 1.S35. 



'-.Xanics jjivt-n by natives to two of the ])rincipal forms of the cultivated Musa. The word 

 platano is Spanish, from the Latin jjlatanus, and is the origin of the Lnjjlish i)lantain, by which 

 bananas fit only for cooking are generally known. Unnatural as such an etymology may seem, it 

 appears U> be a fact that the name is due to some confusion with the oriental plane tree (Latin, 

 platanus), wrongly called sycamore in the western United Slates. 



"Annual Rep. U. S. Geol. and Gcog. Survey of the Territories, j). 418, Washington. 1). (\, 187.?. 



