340 The Flowering Plants of Western India. 



The cultivated plantain, Khela, is M. sanentium, said to be 

 wild in Behar and the E. Himalayas. ' The specific name 

 conveys an allusion to a statement of Theophrastus concerning 

 a fruit which served as food for the wise men of India, supposed 

 to have heen the plantain." 



By far the best plantains in W. India are grown in the Bassein 

 district; and at Agasi, N. of Bassein, they have a way of drying them, 

 which, if done scientifically, and for export, might probably make 

 the fruit in that form as popular in England as dried figs. The 

 banana of the W. Indies is not now considered a separate species ; 

 it has the honourable specific name of Paradisiaca, because of the 

 tradition that Eve first saw Adam under one of these trees : 



" Till I espied thee. fair indeed and tall, 

 Under a platane." Paradise Lost. 



" Gerarde and other old authors name it Adam's apple, from a 

 notion that it was the forbidden fruit of Eden ; while others suppose 

 the so-called grapes brought out of the Promised Land by the spies 

 to have been bunches of plantains." London. 



The poetical allusions to tie tree are not always quite accurate, 

 e.g. : 



" Carved is her name in many a spicy grove, 

 In many a plantain forjst waving wide." Rogers. 



To its practical virtues H. M. Stanley bears witness in "Darkest 

 Africa : " 



"We had often wondered, during our life in the forest region, that 

 natives did not appear to have discovered what valuable, nourishing, 

 aad easily digested food they possessed in the plantain and banana. 

 All banana lands, Cuba, Brazil, the W. Indies, seem to me to have been 

 specially remiss in this point. If only the virtues of the flour were 

 known it is not to be doubted that it would be largely consumed 

 in Europe. For infants, persons of delicate digestion, dyspeptics, 

 and those suffering from temporary derangement of the stomach, 

 the flour, properly prepared, would be in universal demand. During 

 my two attacks of gastritis a light gruel of this, mixed with milk, 

 was the only food that could be digested." 



Ravenala Madagascarensis (Urania speciosa, D.), "the traveller's 

 tree" of Madagascar, "the water tree" of the Dutch, is found in 

 gardens in and about Bombay. It is a tree of remarkable appearance, 

 having a woody stem, and very large, long-petioled plantain-like 

 leaves, forming a semicircular head, like an open fan; flowers 

 large, white, sessile. 



"In Madagascar it forms a characteristic feature of the scenery 

 in many parts. The lower leaves drop oft' as the stem grows, and in 

 an old tree the lowest leaves are sometimes 30 feet from the ground. 

 The fruit is filled with a fine silky fibre of the most brilliant blue 

 or purple, among which are about 30 or 40 seeds. . . The leaf- 

 stalks always contain water, even in the driest weather, more 



