CHAPTER XX 

 THE BANANA, (Musa, IvTat. Ord. Musacece) 



PERHAPS no form of plant-life, with the exception of 

 the palm, is more typically tropical in appearance 

 than the Musa (including both plantain and banana); 

 none is more widely cultivated through the variations of 

 the warmer climates, and nothing has ever been found in 

 the vegetable kingdom which could with such entire satis- 

 faction or in so wholesale a manner take its place in the 

 countries where it grows. The names of the plantain 

 ("type of the species"), M. paradisiaca, and a variety of 

 it, M. sapientum, or "horse banana," indicate the esteem 

 in which this fruit-food is held — its honour "in its own 

 country." The former was so called by the early oriental 

 Christians, it is said, who, venturing boldly to differ from 

 those idealists mentioned in connection with other fruits, 

 betrayed a certain materialistic tendency in imagining 

 the banana to have been the cause of the dissension in the 

 original garden. If it was there was indeed irony in the 

 wisdom of the serpent's choice (or must we credit him 

 with kindly foresight?), as the plantain provides not only 

 food and drink for man and beast but shelter, since the 

 large leaves make an excellent thatch, and also, we are 

 told, readily furnish "table covers and parasols!" "Sap- 

 ientum" means "of the wise men," in allusion to the choice 

 of the banana as food by the wise men of India — this ac- 

 cording to Theophrastus. 



The banana is certainly, with many hot-country 

 peoples, the "staff of life." It is perhaps the best of all 



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