Banana not Indigenous Ios 
and banana were not known in these countries before the 
Spanish conquest, but were first brought from the Canaries 
to Hayti in 1516, and from thence taken to the mainland. 
Neither the sugar-cane? nor the plantain is given in the 
list of the indigenous productions of Mexico by the careful 
and accurate Hernandez. The natives made sugar from the 
green stems of the maize. Humboldt thinks that some 
species of plantain were indigenous to America; but it seems 
incredible that such an important fruit could have been 
overlooked by the early historians. In the old world the 
cultivation of the banana dates from the earliest times of 
which tradition makes mention. One of the Sanscrit names 
was bhanu—fruit, from which probably the name “ banana ”’ 
was derived.” 
Both the plantain and the banana are always propagated 
from shoots or suckers that spring from the base of the 
plants; and it is to be remarked that the pineapple and the 
bread-fruit, that are also universally grown from cuttings or 
shoots, and have been cultivated from remote antiquity, have 
in a great measure lost the faculty of producing mature seed. 
Such varieties could not arise in a state of nature, but are due 
to selection by early races of mankind, who would naturally 
propagate the best varieties; and, to do this, seed was not 
required. As the finest kinds of bananas, pineapples, and 
bread-fruit are almost seedless, it is probable that the nutri- 
ment that would have been required for the formation of the 
seeds has been expended in producing larger and more suc- 
culent fruits. We find some varieties of oranges, which also 
have been cultivated from very early ages, producing fruits 
without seeds; but as these trees are propagated from seeds, 
these varieties could not become so sterile as those just men- 
tioned. There can be no doubt that the seedless varieties 
of bananas, bread-fruits, and pineapples have been propa- 
gated for hundreds of years; and this fact ought to modify 
the opinions generally entertained by horticulturists that the 
life of plants and trees propagated from shoots or cuttings 
cannot be indefinitely prolonged in that way. Perhaps this 
1 The sugar-cane is said never to bear seed in the West Indies, Malaga, 
India, Cochin China, or the Malay Archipelago. Darwin’s Animals, 
and Plants under Domestication, vol. li. p. 169. 
* Humboldt’s Aspects of Nature, vol. ii. p. 141. 
