260 
flowers E male bracts basico. oblong, pale erimson. Fruit 
all nches long, fusifofm with a very broad truncate apex. 
Diètri bidoi Asam. Deseri ibed from a plant that flowered at Kew, 
March 1893. [Seedlings of this crossed with JM. rosacea, are now at 
Kew.] 
*55. M. imi gau Mann. Herb. Habit of M. sanguinea, but forming 
large clumps of ather lower stems. Bracts bright orange yellow, 
glabrous. Calyx liv. Fruit green, glabrous. Distribution :— 
orange-coloured bracts. 
CULTIVATED VARIETIES. 
Some of the cultivated varieties of bananas and plantains known in 
different parts of the world have already been mentioned in connection 
witk the species described in the preceding section. There are, how- 
ever, numerous varieties whose origiñ cannot, in every instance, be 
clearly traced. ere is a good deal of confusion existing also as to 
what are varieties and what are mere forms. In fact, the information 
available in regard to cultivated bananas is in need of being thoroughly 
sifted and arrange n the present state of our knowledge zz is only 
possible to enumerate the various sorts under their vernacular names, 
d to add a few notes giving their special or most pioussat 
characters. This may more conveniently be done under the principal 
geographical regions in which they are found. The principal autho- 
rities cited are the following :—Rumph, Herb. Amboinense, vol. 
pp. 125-187; Blanco, Flor. Filip., pp. 239-246 ; Firminger’s Maret 
of Gardening for India , ed. 3, pp. 179-181; Bojer's Hortus Mauriti- 
anus, pp. 331—332; Sagot in Journ. Soe. Hort. France se 
pp. 238-285; Kurz in Journ. Agri.-Hort. Soc. India, E vol. 
pp. 112-163; Diaz, El Agricultor Venezolano (1877), pp. 57-431 
Harrison and Jenman, Report on Agricultural Work, British Guiana, 
1890, pp. 56-62. 
Vv. 
INDIA. 
‘In such a large empire as vom one might expect," says s urz, 
to find the greatest variety of bananas, but such is not the case.” 
The Philippine Islands and the grum Archipelago are richest, tg on 
the authority of Moon, Ceylon comes next. The varieties appear to 
decrease rapidly as we travel northward from. the equator. Roxburgh 
states that he obtained in india only three varieties ‘of the “ plantain” 
and p 30 varieties of the ‘‘banana Rheede (1678-1703) 
appears to be the pe authority that wrote intelligently on the bananas 
and plantains of i. ives them the Malabar name of bala. 
In the first volume of his Hortus Malabaricus, pp. 17-20, he enumerates 
and illustrates several varieties : neudera bald with oblong red fruits ; 
caduli-balá with a thin skin and pulp of pleasant taste; puam- 
bald with terete fruits with a good taste; mannem-bala v vith four- 
cornered fruits and a thick skin ; canim-balá producing no tie owers 
but fertile ones, has the fruits small and yellow when pes calem- 
bala has the fruits full of black seeds and a rather thick s 
n sort known as guiady is considered the boss as a dessert 
fruit. It is sind; small sized, with a very thin rind, luscious, dete 
and of a most delicate flavour. “ A good bunch may contain ov 
thousand fruits” (Dict. Econ ` Products of Pudor ed es 293). 
This — is used entirely as a table fruit, being considered too valuable 
