The Editor: Origin of the Banana 



279 



mens are covered by fragments of these 

 leaves crushed and folded upon one 

 another, without any trace of middle 

 nerves or peduncles, the leaves must 

 have been of great size. Their sub- 

 stance is not very thin. The surface is 

 perplace covered with an epidermis 

 which shows the veins are crossed by 

 veinlets at right angles. When the 

 epidermis is destroyed, this character is 

 not observable, it may, therefore, result 

 of a wrinkling of the epidermis. The 

 species is related to Musa Bilinica Ett., 

 differing, however, by essential charac- 

 teristics." 



FOSSILS IN YELLOWSTONE PARK. 



Fifteen years later F. H. Knowlton'^ 

 collected the same species on the north- 

 east side of Crescent Hill, opposite a 

 small pond, in the Yellowstone Park, and 

 wrote : 



"This species was described by Les- 

 quereux from a 'shale over a thin bed 

 of coal, eight miles southeast of Green 

 River Station, Wyoming', in what he 

 at first regarded as the Washaki group, 

 but which he later decided was the 

 true Green River Group. This locahty 

 has not since been visited, and in fact 

 can not now be satisfactorily located. 

 It is more than probable, however, that 

 the former determination of the horizon 

 is correct. 



"So far as I know, this is the second 

 time this species has ever been found. 

 It is represented by five or six fairly 

 well preserved specimens, which agree 

 perfectly wjch Lesquereux's descriptions 

 and figures. 



"On one of the specimens there are a 

 number of thick stems or stipes. They 

 are longitudinally striate, as described 

 by Lesquereux, and bear only fragments 

 of the leaves preserved. In the specimen 

 figured we have a narrow leaf preserved 

 almost entirely. It is about five centi- 

 meters broad and seven centimeters 

 long, as preserved, with perfectly entire 

 margins. In still another specimen the 

 stipe, with portions of lamina attached, 

 is fully 20 cm. long. There is no evi- 

 dence from these specimens of the 



"Monographs of the U. S. Geol. Survey, XXXII, pt. II, p. 686. Washington, 1899. Plate 

 LXXXIII, fig. 1. 



'^Another striking instance is the well known sassafras (5. officinale) of the eastern United 

 States. The only other species of its genus is found in the interior of China. 



leaves having been as broad as described 

 in some of the original specimens, but 

 Lesquereux also speaks of narrow leaved 

 forms." 



In addition to this remnant of a 

 remote epoch, we still have in America 

 members of the natural order Scita- 

 minaceae, to which the tribe Museae 

 belongs. The most conspicuous is the 

 Traveler's Palm (Ravenala guianensis), 

 representing an interesting genus which 

 is knovv^n to most people only by the 

 other of its two species, the larger 

 Ravenala madagascariensis . The pres- 

 ence of these two closely related species, 

 one confined to the northern part of 

 South America, and the other to the 

 East African island of Madagascar, 

 affords an interesting problem in the 

 geographic distribution of plants,'* and 

 brings vividly to mind the antiquity of 

 the order. Other members of the same 

 order are the arrowroot, turmeric, 

 cardamom and ginger plants and the 

 strikingly beautiful Bird of Paradise 

 flower, Strelitzia reginae, which is often 

 seen in gardens in California and 

 Florida, as well as in its tropical home. 



GENUS MUCH CONFUSED. 



The present distribution of the 

 banana, then, appears to be no wider 

 than the distribution of its order 

 throughout its history. At present the 

 genus Musa comprises 32 or more 

 distinct species and at least a hundred 

 subspecies, many of them badly con- 

 fused, and many of them probably 

 representing only the escape of ctilti- 

 vated varieties, or the restilt of natural 

 hybridization. The Philippines and the 

 Indian archipelago are richest in forms, 

 followed by Ceylon; America is, by 

 comparison, rather poor in them — a 

 fact that has often been adduced to 

 show that the cultivated banana was 

 not known before its introduction by the 

 Spaniards. The genus is divided into 

 two broad sections: Eumusa, with 

 edible fruits, and Physocaulis, with 

 inedible fruits; the former is, for com- 

 mercial purposes, divided into bananas 

 and plantains, the latter being larger 



