302 HISTORY OF FRUITS. 



weigh upwards of forty pounds. This plant has been 

 reared in our stoves ever since the year 1690. 



THE BANANA TREE : Musa Sapientum. This tree so 

 much resembles the plantain, that it is only known at 

 first by the dark spots on its stem, which the other has 

 not. It is a wholesome fruit, and is used at desserts. A 

 pleasant drink, exceeding our cider, is made from it. 

 When baked in tarts, or boiled in dumplings, this fruit 

 tastes like the apple : when dried in the sun, it resembles 

 a delicious fig. It also makes a good marmalade, which 

 is recommended as a great relief for coughs. The fruit 

 of the banana-tree is said to comfort the heart ; is cooling, 

 and refreshes the spirits. Labat states, that when the 

 natives of the West Indies undertake a voyage, they make 

 part of their provision to consist of a paste of banana, 

 which, in case of need, serves them for nourishment and 

 drink. For this purpose they take ripe bananas, and 

 having squeezed them through a fine sieve, form the solid 

 fruit into small loaves, which are dried in the sun, or in 

 hot ashes, after being previously wrapped in the leaves of 

 Indian flowering-reed. 



The fruit of the banana-tree is about four or five inches 

 long, of the size and shape of a middling cucumber ; it 

 generally grows in bunches, weighing upwards of twelve 

 pounds. The Spaniards have a conceit, that if you cut 

 this, or the fruit of the plantain athwart, or crossways, 

 there appears a cross in the middle of the fruit, and there- 

 fore they will not cut any, but break them. Lodovicus 

 Romanus, and Brocard, who wrote a Description of the 

 Holy Land, call the bananas Adam's Apples, supposing 

 them to be the fruit that Eve took and gave to Adam ; 

 which is as erroneous as the account of the Abbe 

 Poyart and others, who state the leaves to be those of 



