A470 APPENDIX. No. V. 
towards determining the original country of several of the plants here enume- 
rated, especially of the Banana, the Papa, the Capsicum, and Tobacco. 
The Banana is generally considered to be of Indian origm: Baron Hum- 
boldt, however, has lately suggested * that several species of Musa may pos- 
sibly be confounded undgr the names of Plantain and Banana ; and that part 
of these species may be supposed to be indigenous to America. How far the 
general tradition said to obtain both in Mexico, and Terra Firma, as well as the 
assertion of Garcilasso de la Vega respecting Peru, may establish the fact of the 
Musa having been cultivated in the new continent before the arrival of the 
Spaniards,+ I do not mean at present to enquire. But in opposition to the 
conjecture referred to, it may be advanced that there is no circumstance in the 
structure of any of the states of the Banana or Plantain cultivated in India, 
or the islands of equinoctial Asia, to prevent their being all considered as 
merely varieties of one and the same species, namely Musa sapientum ; that 
their reduction to a single species is even confirmed by the multitude of varieties 
that exist ;$ by nearly the whole of these varieties being destitute of seeds ; 
and by the existence of a plant indigenous to the continent of India,§ pro- 
ducing perfect seeds; from which, therefore, all of them may be supposed to 
have sprung. 
To these objections to the hypothesis of the plurality of species of the Banana, 
may be added the argument referred to as contributing to establish its Asiatic 
origin; for we are already acquainted with at least five distinct species of 
Musa in equinoctial Asia, while no other species has been found in America ; 
nor does it appear that the varieties of Banana, cultivated in that continent, 
may not equally be reduced to Musa sapientum as those of India: and lastly, 
it is not even asserted that the types of any of those supposed species of 
American Banana, growing without cultivation, and producing perfect seeds, 
have any where been found. || 
* Nouv. Espag. vol, 2, p. 360. 
+ Op. cit. p. 361. It may be observed, however, that this is not the opinion in every 
part of the continent of South America, for with respect to Brazil, Marcgraf and Piso 
assert that both the Banana and Plantain are considered as introduced plants, and the 
latter apparently from Congo. (Marcg. p. 137, et Piso Hist. Nat. Bras. p. 154.) 
+ Musa sapientum, Row. Corom. tab. 275. 
§ M. Desvaux, in a dissertation on the genus Musa (in Journ. de Botanique appl, vol. 4, 
