318 Select Plants for Industrial Culture and 



species, and keeps better in transit. The yield of fruit is profuse 

 (even as much as 200 to 300 fruits in a spike), and the flavor 

 excellent. Mr. J. S. Edgar states, that bunches of this banana with 

 thirty dozen fruits are no rarity at Keppel-Bay. General Sir John 

 Lefroy saw bunches of 80 Ibs. weight produced in Bermuda, where 

 the plant bears fruits all the year round. This, as well as M. 

 sapientum and M. paradisiaca, still ripens its fruits in Madeira, Florida 

 and at Port Jackson, where it can be reared more profitably than M. 

 paradisiaca. Introduced about 50 years ago by the Duke of Devon- 

 shire through the Rev. J. S. Williams to the South-Sea Islands, 

 and by the Earl of Derby, through Mr. Mills, to Australia. The 

 specific name, given by M. Loureiro, is entitled to preference. All 

 Musas are grand honey -plants. 



Musa corniculata, Rumph.* 



Insular India. Fruits as large as a good-sized cucumber ; skin 

 thick ; pulp reddish-white, firm, dry, sweet ; an excellent fruit for 

 cooking [Kurz]. The Lubang- variety is of enormous size. 



Musa Ensete, J. F. Gmelin. 



Bruce's Banana. From Sofala to Abyssinia in mountain-regions. 

 This magnificent plant attains a height of about 30 feet, the leaves 

 occasionally reaching the length of fully 20 feet, with a width of 

 3 feet, being perhaps the largest in the whole empire of plants, 

 exceeding those of Strelitzia and Ravenala, and surpassing even in 

 quadrate-measurement those of the grand water-plant Victoria 

 Regia, while also excelling in comparative circumference the largest 

 compound frond of Angiopteris evecta, or the divided leaf of God- 

 winia Gigas, though the leaves of some palms are still larger in 

 circumference. The inner part of the stem and the young spike of 

 the Ensete can be boiled, to serve as a table-esculent, but the fruit is 

 pulpless. This plant produces no suckers, and requires several years 

 to come into flower and seed, when it dies off like the Sago-Palm, 

 the Caryota-Palm and others, which flower but once, without repro- 

 duction from the root. It is probably the hardiest of all species, 

 enduring slight frosts. Of similar stature and therefore scenic effect 

 is M. Livingstoniana (Kirk), from the mountains of equatorial Africa. 

 Two other gigantic species, indigenous to Tropical Africa, are M. 

 Buchanani (Baker), from the Shire-River, and M. proboscidea 

 (Oliver) with an inflorescence of extraordinary length, but also with 

 no edible fruit in its natural state. 



Musa Livingstoniana, Kirk. 



Mountains of Sofala, Mozambique and the Niger-regions. Similar 

 to M. Ensete ; seeds much smaller. This superb plant requires no 

 protection in favorable places in warm temperate climes, as it 

 advances in its native country to elevations of 7,000 feet. This 

 and a Musa of Angola, like M. Ensete, form no suckers 



