36 



Pisang culit tabal (golden banana). The fruit is five-cornered, and 

 has the thickest skin of all the bananas. 



Pisang medji. The dessert-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 easily 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 delicious, on which account it is the most 

 prized as a dessert fruit in Batavia. It is not cultivated at Amboyna, 

 where it is replaced by the preceding kind. Probably nearly allied to 

 the gingeli of Bourbon. 



Pisang swangi is short and thick. The pulp deep yellow or red. 

 Cannot be eaten raw, but is good for roasting. 



Pisang abu, pisang soldado, and pisang 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 egs. Good 

 for eating raw when fully ripe ; otherwise it is sourish and acid, and 

 must be boiled. 



Pisang can any a ketjil. This has the shortest 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 removed. The fruits grow so 

 low that " they 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, Linn.). The fruits are small, plump, more thickened towards the 

 upper end, of a red colour and black 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 each 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 resembles the common banana, it may be an abnormal form of it. 



Pisang utan (Musa sylvestris of Colla), is the larger kind of wild 

 banana. One form (the Mindanao of Rumph) is Musa tecctilis, Nee, 

 yielding Manila hemp. The other (Ambon variety of Rumph) is M. 

 textilis, var. amboinensis. These have been already described in the 

 previous section. 



From other sources we gather that bananas in Java are called pisang 

 maas, or golden pisang, on account of the colour of the peel. There are 

 so many varieties that they can scarcely be counted. The pisang 

 sariboe is the smallest kind of pisang, as the pisang tandok is the 

 largest. The pisang maas is quinquangular, and its taste resembles 

 that of figs. Among the other sorts the most remarkable are pisang 

 medji (dessert pisang), the pisang raja (royal), which is thought to 

 be the most wholesome ; the pisang mera, or red pisang, whose leaves 

 from their very base are of a brownish-red as well as their bunches of 

 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 



