ROYAL GARDENS, KEW. 
BULLETIN 
OF 
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION, 
No. 92. | AUGUST. [1894. 
CCCCV.—SPECIES AERA AM VARIETIES OF 
The tribe JMwsee forms a part of the important Natural Order 
ScrTAMINEA, which includes numerous economic plants such as Arrow- 
root, Turmeric, Cardamoms, Ginger, and Cannas. It Strand ated genera, 
all of interest :— Heliconia, Musa, Strelitzia, and Ravenala. e 
Heliconias are natives of the New World, and r repre ia in habit the 
wild Musas of the Old. The Musas tiéssivi include the wild and 
cultivated bananas and plantains, and are indigenous to the Old World and 
Polynesia. The Strelitzias are plants with distichous leaves, and their 
* travellers’-palms,” whose leaves on long stalks irte: like the ribs 
of a fan are striking objects in many tropical countrie 
Musas are the largest of tree-like herbs, often icing with the 
leaves, a height of 25 to 40 feet. ‘They have not inappropria tely hai 
compared by Meneghini and mi Richard to “ gigantic leeks.” Thes 
plants can be grown over an immense area of the earth’s raa aud 
are found either wild or leris from 38° N. lat. to 35° S. lat 
There are about 40 described species of Musa known (in various 
parts of the world) and about one- kalf of these are now under igi pei 
in this country. The edible fruited species seem to have migrated with 
mankind into all the climates in which they can be grown, and are 
universally cultivated in the equatorial zone for purposes of shade and 
food. Le Maout and Decaisne say :— 
* Bananas and plantains afford d such desirable food that their cultiva- 
tion is not less important in the tropics than that of cereals and farinaceous 
tubers in temperate regions 
n West ae Monteiro (Angola and the Congo, I., 294) speaks 
ilio of these plan 
* Bananas and Amer STOW ificentl the rich, moist earth 
in which they delight is found, 2 A go rear their magnifi- 
cent leaves unbroken by a breath of air f grove of banana trees thus 
growing luxuriantly in a forest clearing is one of the most beautiful 
u 82629. 1375.—7/94. Wt.4 A 
