152 



uneatable. At Manilla, Mcyen' states that there is a variety of 

 banana full of seeds. At Luzon, he says- there is a permanent 

 variety, Platano de Pepita, propagated by shoots, and though it 

 contains a great number of seeds, the pulpy substance of the 

 fruit is exceedingly well flavored. In India, Cochin China and 

 Java, this variety is also found, the fruit full of seeds, and there- 

 fore, less esteemed for eating. Finlaysbn^ expressly mentions the 

 cultivated Mnsa with perfect seeds, and on the island of Ubi he 

 found a wild Miisa with fruit full of seeds, and little edible pulp. 

 At Batavia in 1790, Captain Cook* found the variety called Pis- 

 sang Batu or Pissang Bidjie to be full of seed, but he adds that 

 it had no excellence to recommend it to the taste, but the Malays 

 use it as a remedy for the flux. At New Holland- he speaks of 

 a variety of wild plaintain with seeds and well tasted, although 

 on a previous page he says plantains are not found there. At 

 another page he says these wild plantains were so full of stones 

 as to be scarcely eatable. 



Among the more definite mentions of seedy bananas, we may 



t 



note Mtisa glauca^ Roxb.,^ native of Pegu, the 



fruit containing 



little else but seed, and scarcely fit for a monkey to eat. Royle^ 

 records Mttsa Nepalensis as apparently wild in Nepal, the fruit 

 containing little else than the hard dry seeds. Loureiro^ in Co- 

 chin China describes Mnsa semenifera in three varieties, one with 

 seeds and scarcely any pulp, another with many seeds and a 

 sweet pulp, the third which rarely seeds and the pulp very sweet 

 Roxburgh on the Coromandel Coast describes Miisa superha as 

 ripening seed, the fruit of no use, and Musa troglodytarnm is de- 

 scribed in Miller's Dictionary as having numerous seeds and in- 

 edible fruit. The same is said of its synonym Miisa uranoscopus 

 by Loureiro. On the contrary Mueller^ says the edible fruits 



I Quoted by Darwin, An. and PL ii. 205, note. 



2Meyen, Outlines of the Geog. of PI. London, 1846, p. 326. 



3 Jour, of Voy. to Siam, 1S26, p. S6. 



4 Cook, Voy. i. 304.. 



5 Cook, Voy. i. 234, 235. 



6 Roxburgh, Coromandel PL Plate 300. 



7 Royle, IlL of Bot. of the Himalayas, 355. 



8 Loureiro, Cochin Ch. 644. 



9 Mueller, Select Plants, under Musa, p. 136. 



i 



m-f^ 



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