
NOTES ON TROPICAL FRUITS. 409 
ored or buff, and slightly acid. Then there are varieties 
_ with red fruit quite common here, blunt fruit, and some with 
avery diminutive fruit of fine flavor. The names Banana 
and Plantain are used almost indiscriminately, but the latter 
_ usually applies to those varieties which are coarser and usu- 
ally eaten cooked. 
Usually no seeds are found within the pulp, but at Akyab, 
and along the coast of Arracan, a kind is found full of seeds. 
These seeds are black, rough, about the size of cotton-seeds, 
_ and enveloped in a sort of fibre so that they cannot be read- 
ily cleaned. The taste of this variety is very inferior. 
The Spaniards have a curious superstition about the fruit. 
The cross section presents a rude cross, and from this they 
Suppose the banana was the forbidden fruit, and Adam saw, 
in eating it, the mystery of redemption by the cross. The 
cross is not very distinct, and the excellent Padre Labat 
remarks, after mentioning this belief: “There is nothing 
2 impossible in this; Adam may have had better eyesight than 
_ We, or the cross was better shaped in the bananas which 

the yom 
AMER, 
_ Stew in his garden.” 
toes for the hogs ! 
g shoots are cooked as greens, but the stem and 
NATURALIST, VOL. II. 
