'268 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION B. 



fruit has yet been published, and nothing is known of its 

 food value beyond general practical experience. To supply 

 a conspicuous gap on the list of fruits which have been sub- 

 mitted to investigation this analysis has been undertaken. 



The Cavendish, or, as it is sometimes called, Fiji variety, 

 has been selected because of its enormous consumption in 

 Australia, where it has almost completely dislodged all the 

 other kinds. This banana is the product of a plant which 

 grows only to a height of about six feet, and it has therefore 

 received the appellation " dwarf." Its original home was 

 China, from which country it was brought to England by 

 the Duke of Devonshire (hence the name Cavendish), and 

 cultivated by him in the celebrated Chatsworth Gardens. 

 From England it was brought to Fiji by a party of mis- 

 sionaries, thence finding its way to Australia. It is now 

 grown to a considerable extent in Queensland, and will 

 thrive well in the northern parts of New South Wales, 

 especially in the Tweed River district. 



The banana has been described as " the produce of one of 

 the most splendid plants of the world. Underground there 

 is a substantial root stock of long duration, from which rises 

 stems, branchless, like those of palms, and carrying upon the 

 summit half a dozen superb leaves of great size, of a rich 

 lucid green, and which arch away from it on their long 

 petioles, magnificently. The veining of the leaves is of a 

 very rare and elegant kind, which has been fittingly called 

 featherlike ; innumerable lateral veins flowing from the 

 midrib in a curvelinear manner, towards the margin. The 

 stem is composed in reality of no more than the sheathing 

 and closely compacted bases of the older petioles, in the 

 heart of which, near the ground, the flower bud is generated. 

 This in due time develops itself from among the youngest 

 leaves as a huge pendulous raccine, constituted of crimson 

 bracts, which protect innumerable though rather trifling 

 flowers, followed again in due time by the well-known 

 fruits — cyhndrical, six or eight inches long, an inch or more 

 in diameter, slightly curved, and when ripe pale yellow. 

 The clusters of fruit are often four feet long, and weigh from 

 twelve to sixty or eighty pounds. In the tropics it is said 

 that two plants will grow anywhere — the castor oil and the 

 banana. This is not only true, but it may be added with 

 equal justice that no plant furnishes man spontaneously with 

 suppUes so vast of a pleasant and nourishing food. In 

 countries where the mean heat of the year is never lower 



