153 



iW. 



S 



jlr 



ff T 



^- 



\.y 



are small, reddish or orange colored, upright and edible, and by 

 the context seedless ; and at the Edinburgh Botanical Garden', 

 Miisa stiperba furnished a great quantity of high flavored, and 

 from the context, seedless fruits. 



Wilkes, g 



both wild and cultivated at Tahiti. Wilkes" says it is destitute of 

 seed, and praises the fruit very highly. Another authority'^ says 

 there are five varieties, and still another^ slates that there are 

 twenty sorts, found wild. Mueller 1. c. seems to consider this 

 species as synonymous with Musa troglodytarwn. 



The cultivated bananas and plantains have been assigned to 

 quite a number of species, and furnish almost innumerable v^arie- 

 ties, all of which are normally seedless, and all of which are de- 

 scribed as more or less delicious for those kinds which are eaten 

 raw. 



M Barberry. Berberis vulgaris, L. (Berberide^). 



■ -^ The fruit hangs in pendulous racemes, the berry a one-celled 



ovary containing from one to eight seeds. The culture is scarcely 

 of sufficient importance to justify expectation of varieties, yet 

 Duhamel-^ mentions the common red, the seedless, the purple, the 

 white, the broad-leaved, the box-leaved, etc., and the black 

 fruited of Tournefort, from the banks of the Euphrates, which, is 

 said to be of a delicious flavor. The purple-leaved in orna- 

 mental gardening, is familiar to us all. 



i The first mention of a seedless barberry that we find is by 



Gerarde^ in 1597. The second edition of his works in 1636, also 

 speaks of it in the same words. '* We have likewise another 

 w^ithout any stone; the fruit is like the rest of the barberries, 

 both in substance and taste." In 1601, Clusius^ had seen this 

 kind at a village near Frankfort, and he pronounces it by far the 

 best sort for preserves. It is mentioned by name by Bauhin^, in 



1 Bot. Mag. quoted Gard. Chron. 1S41, Mar. 20, p. 182. 



2 U. S. Exp. Exp. ii. 28, iii. 333. 



3 Voy. oi the Novara, iii. 243. 



4 Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. 372. 



5 Duhamel du Monceau, arb. fruit, 1768, i. 151. 



6 Herbal. 1579, p. Ii44 ; 1636, p. 1325. 

 7CIUS. rar. plant, i6oi, i. 121. 

 8 Bauhin, pin. T623, p. 454, 





