PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 305 



Father Acosta^ asserts also, althougli less positively, 

 that the Mitsa was cultivated by the Americans before 

 the arrival of the Spaniards. Lastly, Humboldt adds 

 from his own observation, " On the banks of the Orinoco, 

 of the Cassiquaire or of the Beni, between the mountains 

 of Esmeralda and the banks of the river Carony, in the 

 midst of the thickest forests, almost everywhere that 

 Indian tribes are found who have had no relations with 

 European settlements, we meet with plantations of 

 Manioc and bananas." Humboldt suo-gests the hypothesis 

 that several species or constant varieties of the Banana 

 have been confounded, some of which are indigenous to 

 the new world. 



Desvaux studied the specific question, and in a really 

 remarkable work, published in 1814,^ he gives it as his 

 opinion that all the bananas cultivated for their fruits 

 are of the same species. In this species he distinguishes 

 forty -four varieties, which he arranges in two groups ; 

 the large-fruited bananas (seven to fifteen inches long), 

 and the small- fruited bananas (one to six inches), 

 commonly called fig bananas. R. Brown, in 1818, in his 

 work on the Plants of the Congo, p. 51, maintains also 

 that no structural difi:erence in the bananas cultivated in 

 Asia and those in America prevents us from considering 

 them as belonging to the same species. He adopts the 

 name Miisa sapientum, which appears to me preferable 

 to that of M. paradisiaca adopted by Desvaux, because 

 the varieties with small fertile fruit appear to be nearer 

 the condition of the wild Musce found in Asia. 



Brown remarks on the question of origin that all the 

 other species of the genus Alusa belong to the old world ; 

 that no one pretends to have found in America, in a 

 wild state, varieties with fertile fruit, as has happened 

 in Asia; lastly, that Piso and Marcgraf considered that 

 the banana was introduced into Brazil from Congo. In 

 spite of the force of these three arguments, Humboldt, 

 m his second edition of his essay upon New Spain 

 (ii. p. o97), does not entirely renounce his opinion. He 



^ Acosta, Hist. Nat. Be Indias, 1608, p. 250. 

 ^ Desvaux, Journ. Bot., iv. p. 5. 



X 



