27 



and in his writings used the word "banana" exclusively, for the edible 

 fruit of Musas. 



Grisebach describes the stem of the plantain as "green" and the 

 fruits " ascending " (or curved upwards) " about a foot long." This 

 curving upwards is characteristic of the Horn plantain, but it is not 

 distinctive enough to separate plantains and bananas in general. The 

 prevailing habit of the leaves, according to Sir William Hooker, is that 

 they are " much longer and narrowed into the petiole " than in the 

 banana. The male flowers and the bracts are not so deciduous as in 

 the banana, and the portion of the spike beyond the fruit is much 

 shorter and usually covered with the remains of the bracts and dried up 

 flowers. The individual fruits again are very distinct. They have a 

 firmer and less saccharine pulp and are not fit to eat without cooking. 



In a " Report on the Agricultural Work in the Botanical Gardens, 

 British Guiana," for the year 1890, pp. 59-60, Messrs. Harrison and 

 Jenman state that only after a long and well-trained experience can 

 the plantain be distinguished in the field from the banana when not in 

 flower or fruit. 



"When in fruit, however, the case is different. There is then a 

 character, observable at sight, which only requires to be pointed out for 

 the merest novice in the subject to be able to tell which is which. 

 This character is that, in the banana, after the fruit has set and begun to 

 develop, the succeeding clusters of flowers, often a hundred or more in 

 number, and their large embracing bracts are deciduous, i.e., drop away, 

 leaving a clear, absolutely naked, long extended and still elongating, 

 stem or axis, hanging tail-like 2-3 feet beyond the fruit, with the 

 firmly compacted mass of unopened bracts and flowers, bud-like at 

 the end ; while in the plantain the stem ceases to extend more than 

 12 or 18 inches beyond the fruit, the succeeding cluscers of flowers and 

 bracts all opening to the very end, and remaining persistent, withered and 

 dry — the trash as it is called in colonial phraseology — being permanently 

 attached to the stem. In the banana the axis continues to grow as long 

 as the fruit hangs, cluster after cluster of flowers, with their bracts, 

 opening and dropping away, a mass, like an enlarged Nelumbium bud, 

 still unopened, remaining at the far extended end when the bunch is 

 cut ; while in the plantain the growth of the axis is arrested soon after 

 the fruit sets, the abortive flowers opening, and remaining attached, from 

 end to end of the stem. 



" A single exception to the rule obtains in the case of the dwarf or 

 Chinese banana (Musa Cavendish ii), in other respects also specifically 

 distinct, in which, as in plantains, the abortive flowers and their bracts 

 are constantly persistent. Remembering this exception, and guarded 

 from chance of mistake thereby, the untrained observer, seeing growing 

 plants in fruit, may confidently determine which are plantains and which 

 bananas, without attempting to assay the qualities of the fruit, upon 

 which the great economic distinction above noticed is based. As 

 mentioned before in the remarks on bananas, the texture of the plantain 

 is such that at whatever stage it is used, whether green or ripe, it must 

 be cooked to make it palatable. It is this quality in the plantain which 

 makes the great economic difference between the two fruits." 



