151 



^ 



'i 



Forster' does not attempt to enumerate, but says the plantain 

 varies almost ad infinitiiin like an apple. A few more quotations 

 will suffice. Heuze' says the banana has produced fourteen varie- 

 ties in Malabar, twenty- nine in Tahiti, fifteen in Tonga, sixteen 

 in Malaysia and eighty in Batavia. On the Amazon, Castelnau^ 

 { notes an enormous number of varieties, and Grant"* mentions very 







distinct kinds in Central Africa. 



This very abundance of varieties shows that the fruit must 



-^ ■ occasionally produce seed, and such instances are recorded. On 



' the coast of Paria, near the Golfo Triste, Humboldt' says the 



banana is said to occasionally produce germinating seeds if the fruit 

 be allowed to ripen on the stem. At Bordones, also, near Cuniana, 

 perfectly formed and matured seeds have been occasionally found 

 in this fruit. Other examples of seeding are given as we proceed. 

 Mnsa ensete, Gmelin, is cultivated^ in Abyssinia in large plan- 

 tations for the inner portion of the stem and the young spike, 

 which is used as a staple vegetable. Its fruit is dry and in- 

 I "^' edible, containing a few large stony seeds. "^ There are many in- 



^^ stances given of other banana fruit containing seed. Burton^, in 



Central Africa says the best bananas are grown by the Arabs at 

 Unyamyembe, but poor specimens, coarse and insipid, stringy 

 and full of seed; upon Lake Tanganyika there is a variety called 

 ^ Mikono fJnmihOy or elephant's hands, very large, the skin brick- 



dust red, the pulp a dull yellow, with black seeds, and the flavor 

 harsh, strong and drug- like. On the Coromandel Coast, Rox- 







r 



burgh*^ found both bananas and plantains under culture, and says 

 the original wild Miisa from which all the cultivated varieties of 



T 



both plantain and banana proceed, bears numerous seeds. In the 

 Himalayas, Hooker'° notes two species of wild plantain, which 

 ripen austere and small fruits which are full of seeds, and quite 



I Forster, Obs. 177. . . 



*^ 2 Les. pi. alim. 11. 569. 



3 Quoted by Ilerndon, Amazon, 181. 

 ^ 4Speke's Nile, 5 S3. 



5 Views of Nature, 305. 



6 Bnice, Voy. v., 50, t. 8 and g. 



7 Masters Treas of Bot. art. Mtisa, 



8 Burton, Lake Region of Central Africa, 316, 



9 Roxburgh, Coromandel PI. iii. 74. 

 JO Hooker, Himalayan Journal, i. 143. 



I 



