214 : Miscellaneous. 
the most part diseased, wherever planted. These conflicting opinions 
must be cleared up by experiment. In the meantime, I believe that’ 
I can point out the “ seat of the disease,”’ which is at all events the’ 
first step towards the discovery of its cure. If a plantain tree be 
stripped of its leaves from the root upwards, it will be found to con- 
sist of a number of joints—the bunch of plantains being a continua-' 
tion of the upper joint, and the spire being the upper leaf rolled up 
—exactly similar to a cane and its arrow—the bunch being the or- 
ganic apex of the plantain tree, in the same manner as the cane 
arrow is the organic apex of the cane plant. . 
Of the various vessels and tissues which are necessary to vegetable 
life, the plantain tribe abounds in what are called spiral vessels or 
trachez ; and if a healthy plantain tree be examined from the root 
upwards as far as the fruit, these vessels will be found in continuous’ 
lines; and even in the farina of the plantain they are detected in an 
extreme state of tenuity. On further examination, these spirals (as 
has been known to botanists for some time) are found to be com- 
posed of numerous fasciculi, and are contained in tubes from whence 
they can be drawn forth, having a translucid appearance, and being 
perfectly free from any adherent matter. From the large number of 
these vessels in the plantain tribe, it is evident that their functions 
must be important, and that any impediment to their healthy action 
must be attended with an imperfect development in some part of 
the plant. Now if a plantain tree bearing a bunch of plantains in a 
more or less diseased state be examined carefully, a certain number 
of these tubes containing spirals from the roots up, through the culm 
or body of the tree into the bunch, will be found to be filled with a 
ferruginous-looking fluid of a more or less dark colour, and if the 
spiral vessels be drawn forth from their tubes, this matter will be 
seen to collect upon them in minute drops; the spirals will also be 
of the same colour as the substance contained in the tubes. A bunch 
of plantains in the extreme state of disease, containing no farina, but 
merely the dissepiments of the cells, will have a large number of the 
spiral tubes, particularly in the circumference of the culm, filled with 
a dark ochreous-coloured fluid, while the number of diseased tubes 
will be fewer, and the colour of the fluid contained more of a yel- 
lowish colour, in less diseased plants. 
In the stock of a small poor bunch of plantains, but still contain- 
ing farina and edible, only a trace here and there of the abnormal 
matter was found. ‘This peculiar state is not confined to the full- 
grown plant, but the youngest suckers show the disease in a greater 
or less degree. All the other tissues and vessels of diseased trees I 
have found after the most careful investigation to be quite sound. 
The decay of the leaves, and subsequent rottenness and destruction 
of the plant, is owing to its diminishing vitality, and has nothing to 
do with the specific disease. Any mechanical injury sufficiently vio- 
lent to diminish the vigour of the plant, would be followed by simi- 
lar decay and rottenness. I am therefore fully convinced, that, what- 
ever may be the cause of the disease, the seat of it is in the tubes 
containing the spiral vessels, which are invaded by an abnormal » 
