No, 684, 
_ MUSA PARADISIACA. 
Class. Order. 
HEXANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 
It is difficult to assign a native country 
to this magnificent vegetable, it having been 
long cultivated in all the warmer regions of 
the globe. In Gerarde’s days, he says it 
was called Musa by suchas travel to Aleppo, 
which was confirmed as its generic name by 
umier, who published accurate delinea- 
tions of its characters in his Plant. Amer. 
Genera. Tt is said to have been unknown 
in America before the arrival of the Spa- 
niards, who carried it thither from the Ca- 
nary islands, to which it had been brought 
from Guinea. Its great value and excel- 
lence has probably induced some of the old 
writers to call it Adam’s apple, supposing 
it to have been the forbidden fruit of Para- 
dise. But this idea can haye no foundation, 
there being no reason whatever to suppose 
that the fruit which was appointed by the 
Almighty Creator as the test of the obe- 
dience of our first parents, and which by 
their transgression entailed so much woe on 
all sueceeding generations, was ever known 
