1050 BENGAL PLANTS. [Ravenala. 
_ 9173. RAVENALA MADAGASCARIENSIS Sonnerat; I’. B. I. vi. 198. 
Occasionally planted. 
A small tree, with distichous, plantain-like leaves, and 
a woody stem; native of Madagascar. Beng. Pantho- 
padop. The Traveller's Tree. 
944, Musa Linn. 
Tree-like herbs, with thick oa composed of convolute leaf- 
sheaths; leaves very large, o lowers in an erect or 
decurved, subterminal spike, Peels 1-sexual, the lower 
female, the upper male; bracts or spathaceous, ovate or 
- orbicular, Sepals connate in athaceous, 3-5-lobed calyx. 
Petals connate in a unilateral Sarita as long as the calyx, convo- 
lute round stamens and style. Stamens 5 perfect, the sixth 
rudimentary or obsolete ; sean stout, filiform ; anthers linear, 
erect, 2-celled. Carpels 3, connate in a 3-locular ovary; ovules 
many, superposed ; style fifo orm from a thickened base; stigma 
globose, 6-lobed. Fruit oblong or fusiform, trigonous, fleshy, 
indehiscent. Seeds subglobose or angled by pressure, in cultivated 
orms often obsolete. 
Stems stout, over 8 feet high ; pice ey -flowered ; petal shorter than 
the calyx; fruit usually edible, pul 
Cultivated, fruit with seeds very ie or none :— 
Fruit with soft, sweet pulp, edible uncooked .........++0++00++ sapientum. 
Fruit with firm pulp, only edible when cooked 
5 er var, paradisiaca. 
Wild, fruit with many seeds, pulp firm 
Stems slender, under 6 feet high; bracts few- oeada ee s long as 
calyx; fruit firm, not edible ornata. 
eoeeee 
2174. Musa sarrentum Linn.; F. B. I. vi. 262; E. D. M. 811. 
In all the provinces, cultivated. 
A tree-like aah — 8-12 feet high. Beng. Kantali- 
kela. The B a. 
2174/2. PARADISIACA AF. B. I. vi. 262. 
the provinces, generally cultivated. 
A tree-like Str stems 15-20 feet high. Beng. Kach- 
kela. The Plantain 
2174/3, Var. syLvEsTRIs. = sapientum F. I. i. 663. 
Chota Nagpur; Chittagong. 
peas hg 
