MUSA. 



MUSACE^E. 



sro 



Plantain (Mtaa Sapicntum). 



nte of the torrid zone ; and, from its nutritious qualities and general 

 use, it may, whether used in a raw or dresaed form, be regarded 

 rather as a necessary article of food than as an occasional luxury. In 

 equinoctial Asia and America, in tropical Africa, in the islands of the 

 Atlantic and Pacific oceans, wherever the mean heat of the year 

 exceeds 24 centigrade degrees (75 Fahrenheit), the plantain is one of 

 the most interesting objects of cultivation for the subsistence of man. 

 Three dozen fruits will maintain a person, instead of bread, for a 

 week, and even appears a better diet in warm countries. Indeed the 

 plantain U often the whole support of an Indian family. The fruit 

 is produced from among the immense leaves, in bunches weighing 

 from 30 to SOlbs., of various colours, and of great diversity of form. 

 It usually is long and narrow, of a pale-yellow or dark-red colour, 

 with a yellow farinaceous flesh. But in form it varies to oblong and 

 nearly spherical ; and in colour it offers all the shades and variations 

 of tints that the combination of yellow and red, in different propor- 

 tions, can produce. Some sorts are said always to be of a bright- 

 green colour. In general, the character of the fruit to an European 

 palate is that of mild insipidity ; some sorts are even so coarse as not 

 to be edible without preparation. The greater number however are 

 eaten in their raw state, and some varieties acquire by cultivation a 

 very exquisite flavour, even surpassing the finest pear. In the better 

 aorta the flesh has a fine butter-yellow colour, is of a delicate taste, 

 and melts in the mouth like marmalade. To point out all the kinds 

 that are cultivated in the East Indies alone would be as difficult as to 

 describe the varieties of apples and pears in Europe, for the names 

 vary according to the form, size, taste, and colour of the fruits. Sixteen 

 principal kinds are described at length by Kumphius, from which all 

 the others seem to have diverged. Of these the worst are, Pisang 

 Swangi, Pisang Tando, and Pisang Oabba-Qabb ; and the best are the 

 round, soft, yellowish sorts, called Pisang Medji and Pisang Radja. 

 Some cultivators at Batavia boast of having 80 sorts. Rheedo dis- 

 tinguishes 14 varieties by name, as natives of Malabar. In Sumatra 

 lone 20 varieties are cultivated, among which the Pisang Amas, or 

 Small Yellow Plantain, is esteemed the most delicate, and next to 

 that the Pisang Raja, Pisang Dingen, and Pisaug Kallo. In the West 

 Indies, plantains appear to be even more extensively employed than 

 in the eastern world. The modes of eating them are various. The 

 beet sorU are served up raw at table, aa in the East Indies, and have 



been compared for flavour to an excellent reinette apple after its sweet- 

 ness has been condensed by keeping through the winter. Sometimes 

 they are baked in their skins, and then they taste like the best stewed 

 pears of Europe. They are also the principal ingredient in a variety 

 of dishes, particularly in one called mantague, which is made of slices 

 of them fried in butter and powdered over with fine sugar. Of the 

 many cultivated sorts, that called by the French La Banane Musqude 

 is considered the best; it is less than the others, but has a more 

 delicate flavour. There are uncoloured figures of the plantain fruit 

 in Rheede's ' Hortus Malabaricus,' vol. i., plates 12, 13, and 14 ; and 

 coloured ones in Tussac's ' Flore des Antilles,' plates 1, 2. All hot 

 climates seem equally congenial to the growth of this plant ; in Cuba 

 it is even cultivated in situations where the thermometer descends to 

 7 centesimal degrees (45 Fahrenheit), and sometimes nearly to freez- 

 ing point. There is a hardy variety called Camburi, which is grown 

 with success at Malaga. 



The Plantain prefers a rich fat soil ; for in sandy places, where it 

 flowers abundantly, it produces no fruit. 



In the climates that suit it, there is no plant more extensively 

 useful, independently of its being an indispensable article of food. A 

 tough fibre, capable of being made into thread of great fineness, is 

 obtained from its stem ; and the leaves, from their breadth and hard- 

 ness, form an excellent material for the thatch of cottages. An 

 intoxicating liquor is also made from the fruits when fermented, and 

 the young shoots are eaten as a delicate vegetable. 



The Banana of hot countries is a mere variety of the Plantain, 

 distinguished by being dwarf, with a spotted stem and a more delicate 

 fruit. Botanists call it Musa paradisiaca, in allusion to an old notion 

 that it was the Forbidden Fruit of Scripture : it has also been supposed 

 to be what was intended by the grapes, one bunch of which was 

 borne upon a pole between two men, that the spies of Moses brought 

 put of the Promised Land. The only argument of any importance 

 in support of the latter opinion is, that there is no other fruit to which 

 the weight of the fruit of Scripture will apply. 



All the genus is Asiatic ; the wild plantain is found in the forests 

 of Chittagong, where it blossoms during the rains ; M. coccinea, a 

 dwarf sort, with a stem not more than 3 or 4 feet high, is found in 

 China; M. ornata and M. superba inhabit the forests of Bengal; M. 

 glauca is from Pegu; M. textilis is from the Philippines, where it 

 furnishes the valuable thread called Manilla Hemp. There is also in 

 the gardens of England a plant called M. Caaiendishii, not above 3 feet 

 high, and fruiting abundantly at that size, the origin of which is said 

 to be Mauritius. 



MUSA'CE^E, Muaada, a natural order of Endogens, of which the 

 genus .1/iwa is the representative. They are stemless or nearly stem- 

 less plants, with leaves sheathing at the base and forming a kind of 

 spurious stem, often very large ; their limb separated from the taper 

 petiole by a round tumour, and having five parallel veins diverging 

 regularly from the midrib towards the margin. Flowers spathaceous ; 

 perianth 6-parted, adherent, petaloid, in two distinct rows, more or 

 less irregular; stamens 6, inserted upon the middle of the divisions, 

 some always becoming abortive ; anthers linear, tucned inwards, 



Mttsacece. 



1, a Musaceous flower, with its inferior ovary ; 2, the sexual apparatus of a 

 male flower ; 3, dilto of a female flower ; 4 ( a section of an ovary ; 5, a ripe 

 fruit ; G, the same cut through transversely. 



