224 DE BANANA 



The cultivation of the various varieties in India, China, 

 and the Malay Archipelago dates, says De Candolle, ' from 

 an epoch impossible to realise.' Its diffusion, as that great 

 but very oracular authority remarks, may go back to a 

 period ' contemporary with or even anterior to that of the 

 human races.' What this remarkably illogical sentence 

 may mean I am at a loss to comprehend ; perhaps M. de 

 Candolle supposes that the banana was originally cultivated 

 by pre-human gorillas ; perhaps he merely intends to say 

 that before men began to separate they sent special 

 messengers on in front of them to diffuse the banana in 

 the different countries they were about to visit. Even 

 legend retains some trace of the extreme antiquity of the 

 species as a cultivated fruit, for Adam and Eve are said to 

 have reclined under the shadow of its branches, whence 

 Linnasus gave to the sort known as the plantain the Latin 

 name of Musa paradisiaca. If a plant was cultivated in 

 Eden by the grand old gardener and his wife, as Lord 

 Tennyson democratically styled them (before his elevation 

 to the peerage), we may fairly conclude that it possesses a 

 very respectable antiquity indeed. 



The wild banana is a native of the Malay region, 

 according to De Candolle, who has produced by far the 

 most learned and unreadable work on the origin of domestic 

 plants ever yet written. (Please don't give me undue credit 

 for having heroically read it through out of pure love of 

 science : I was one of its unfortunate reviewers. ) The wild 

 form produces seed, and grows in Cochin China, the 

 Philippines, Ceylon, and Khasia. Like most other large 

 tropical fruits, it no doubt owes its original development to 

 the selective action of monkeys, hornbills, parrots and 

 other big fruit-eaters ; and it shares with all fruits of 

 similar origin one curious tropical peculiarity. Most 

 northern berries, like the strawberry, the raspberry, the 



