264 
Pisang culit tabal (golden | banana). The fruit is five-cornered, and 
has the thickest skin of a 
sang medji. The cae banana (M. mensaria of Rumph), is 
u the best of all bananas" The fruit is about 4—6 inches long; it 
ripens quickly, is yellowish, and the skin is d removed. The pulp 
is soft, sweet, and deliciously scented, as if with rose-water. Always 
eaten raw. 
_ Pisang raja (to which Rumph gave the name of M. regia), is similar 
to the preceding in shape and quality. It is, however, much smaller, 
hardly the length of a finger and an inch thick, smooth with a thinner 
skin, and sweeter and more erent on which account it is the most 
prized as a dessert fruit in Bata It is not cultivated at Amboyna, 
where it is ced by the Asok kind. Probably nearly allied to 
the gingeli of Bou 
isang A is short and thick. The pulp deep yellow or red. 
Cannot be eaten raw, but is good for roastin 
Pisang abu, pisang soldado, and pisang a alphuru are small, short and 
thick fruited sorts, rather flat and compressed. Very good for roasting 
and cooking 
Pisang bombor has the shortest fruits, the size of a hen’s egg. Good 
for eating raw when fully ripe; otherwise it is sourish and acid, and 
must be boiled. 
Pisang cananya ketjil. This has the ios stem and the smallest 
leaves, and is only about as high as a man. "The fruits are round, the 
skin very thin, fragile, and can hardly be Féibvéd. The fruits grow so 
low that “the ey can be taken off with the mouth,” and they are often 
200 on a bunch. ‘The plant is only sparingly soboliferous. 
Pisang tonkat langit has an upright fruited spadix (Musa Troglody- 
tarum, Lin.). ‘The fruits are small, plump, more thickened towards the 
upper end, of a red colour and black st striped. The pulp is golden yellow. 
The few seeds are imbedded lengthwise, brown and flat. The “ djantong,” 
or sterile flower cone, is much larger than in any other bananas, some- 
times a foot long, green and smooth. 
Pisang alphuru. The peduncle is peculiar in bearing leaves, “ two of 
which are at the base and similar to those of the stem, but shorter and 
rounder. Then follow other leaves which are small and narrow, and 
from - of them rises a thick green stalk on which grow a few fruits, 
of which, however, only a few come to perfection." As in other respects 
this re sembles the common banana, it may be an abnormal form of it. 
Pisang utan "n sylvestris of Colla), is the prices m of wild 
banana. One form (the Mindanao of Rumph) is Musa textilis, Née, 
yielding Manila hemp. The other (Ambon id of Rumph) is M. 
textilis, var. amboinensis. These have been already described in the 
vts section 
so many varieties ey can scarcely be counted. The pisang 
sariboe is the smallest kind of pisang, as the pisang taudok is the 
largest. The pisang maas is quinquangular, and its resemble, 
that of figs. Among the other sorts the most remarkable are pisang 
medji (dessert pisang), the qe raja (royal), bises e tight t 
ose 
be the most wholesome ; the pisang mera, or r 
from their very base are of a brownish-red as well as po bunches o 
fruit, and the pisang batoe or bidgi (stone or seed pisang), which is not 
much eaten. There is yet another kind of Musa, the wild pisang, * whose 
