254 
not above half so long as a. plantain, heing also more mellow and soft, 
less luscious, yet of a more delicate taste. They use this for the making 
drink oftener than the plantains, and it is best when used for drink, or 
eaten as fruit; but it is not so good for bread, nor doth it eat well at all 
TS roasted or boiled, so ’tis only necessity "that makes any use it this 
Rochefort (Hist. Nat. des [sles Antilles, pp. 90-93, ed. 1658) idii 
126 fruits, which are so closely packed that they press upon one 
another.’ 
Lunan, in 1814, introduces a distinction first noticed by Lig gon that 
the tem em of the banana “has here and there some blackish spots.’ He 
says 
“The banana tree so much resembles the plantain as hardly to be 
distinguished at ces sight, but has its stem irregularly marked with 
rple spots, which the other has not. The pem of 
fruit are more point and the fruit more numerous, shor 
rounder, than that of the plantain. ‘Che fruit has also a Base. dkin, 
and the pa p is softer and of a more luscious agreeable taste when 
ripe, which may e 
rar fri itters. Tt is a delicate food when ripe and roasted with the 
skin 
risebach, in the Flora of the British West India Islands, p. 599, 
describes the stem of the M. sapientum as * purple-spotted,” and the 
ruit 5 to 6 inches long. Sir William Hooker, judging from plants grown 
at Kew, believed the leaves of the banana to be more rounded or cordate 
than those of the plantain. A further distinction often cited is the fact that 
the male flowers and bracts are deciduous in the banana leaving the spike 
beyond the fruit usually naked. In the plantain the male flowers and the 
bracts are persistent, and the spike beyond the fruit is clothed, not naked. 
The chief distinetion, however, d welt upon is the difference in the 
character of the fruit. iis in the banana is always sweet when ripe, 
and it is fit to eat without cooking. Further, some soris of banana 
are found to bear a cooler climate than the plantain. 
The PLANTAIN or CookiNG. BANANA (Musa a moe var. paradis- 
iaca). This was recognised by toxburgh under the Hindu and Bengali 
name of *katch kulla." It is the “large or cooking plantain ” of 
luropeans in India, the Spanish “platano arton," the * banane" of 
French Guiana and Surinam, according to Aublet ; while Rochefort, 
already cited, speaks of it as “le bananier.” He adds, “It is 12 to 13 
inches long 'and n early as thick as the arm. The tree bears only 
25 to 30 fruits on the raceme and these are rather laxly placed. They 
haye a hard and dry flesh fit only for cooking or for being roasted 
in ashes.” It is the sort typically T M. by the “ pisang 
tandok " of the Malays. Ligon in M a alled it * plantine.” ‘This 
shows the antiquity of the commo ame amongst the English. 
Plantain was evidently originally derived from the Spanish name 
z plantano,” altered by Joseph Acosta and subsequent writers into 
* platano,” * Plantain,” as remarked by Kurz, was an awkward introduc- 
tion into the English language, asit was already applied to thes common 
Rib-grass, a species of Plantago. Kurz, it may be added, co rary to 
fy 
general patie, in the East discarded the word “ plantain ” Aher, 
