Musa. PLNTANDRIA M0N0GYNIA. 491 



flowered, permanent; those of the male-hermaphrodite flowers wither- 

 ing. 



A very stately, elegant, perfectly distinct, strongly marked species, 

 a native of Pegu, and from thence introduced, by tlie discoverer, 

 Mr. F. Carey, into the botanic garden at Calcutta, where it blos- 

 soms iu May, and the seeds ripeu in October and November. Like 

 my .!NJ. superba it never produces suckers, consequently it must be 

 reared from theseed, which it furnishes in great abundance; the fruit 

 containing litlle else, even fit for a monkey to eat. The whole 

 plant has a pale glaucous appearance which, with its columnar stem 

 and total want of suckers, readily distinguish this from all the other 

 Mus<z known to me. 



Root fibrous, about triennial, for like that of my superba, it pe- 

 rishes with the plant, when it has perfected its seed, and not like 

 the cultivated sorts, tuberous, permanent, and furnishing a succes- 

 sion of suckers, by which they are quickly and abundantly propa- 

 gated. — Stem simple, erect, columnar, from ten to twelve feet high 

 and about two feet in circumference. — Leaves numerous round the 

 apex of the stem, &c. as in M. Sapientum — Spadix in this species 

 rather long-peduncled, perfectly pendulous, base occupied with fer- 

 tile female-hermaphrodite flowei3, which are completely hid under 

 the permanent, ovate-lanceolate spathes ; the barren or male-her- 

 jnaphrodite flowers occupy all the rest to the very apex, and con- 

 tinue to blossom in succession until the seeds are ripe, by which 

 time this part greatly exceeds in length the fertile part, and continues 

 covered with the withered, but permanent spathes.* — Corol, stamina, 

 and pist ilium, as in M, Sapientum, Sec. — Berries trigonally clavate, 

 as thick as a cucumber, and about four or five inches long, smooth, 

 striated lengthways with small veins, colour when ripe a mixture 

 of green yellow and pink, three-celled.— Seeds, rather Nuts, a few 

 in each cell, oval, size of a field bean. Integument a perfect, hard, 

 black, substantial nut, divided into three trausveise cells, the up- 



* This part the eud <.f the pendulous infloresce-ace sometimes becomes enlarged aud flat- 

 tened like the top of the stem of Celosia cristata.^K. W. 



