25 



useful plants, wild or cultivated, in Mexico, convince me that at the time 

 of the discovery of America the banana did not exist in the whole of the 

 eastern part of the continent.'* 



At the present time the plantain and banana are extensively cultivated 

 in the tropics of the New World, and they have become as conspicuous a 

 feature in the landscape as in the Old World, freely propagating by 

 suckers and often found half wild in the forests. 



With regard to Polynesia, Seemann remarks {Flora Vitiensis, p. 288) 

 that " a great many different kinds of Musa were found established in 

 different parts of cultivated Polynesia, when Europeans first became 

 familiar with them. In Tahiti alone, Banks and Solander saw 28." 



Sagot states that the wild banana most allied to the cultivated, and from 

 which, therefore, it may be presumed to have originated, has the same 

 height and habit. The spike is pendent towards the earth ; the fruits 

 are smaller, more distant from one another, and contain several fertile 

 seeds. It also produces offsets from its rootstock. It occurs in some of 

 the forests of India, notably at Chittagong (Roxburgh, Fl. Ind. i. 663), 

 in Ceylon (Thwaites' Enum., p. 321), in Cochin China, Siam especially, 

 in the small island of Pulo Ubi(Finlayson), in the Philippines (Rumph and 

 Blanco). Sagot adds : u I am unable to say if it is the same plant that 

 is scattered over this vast area, or if there are several distinct species 

 belonging respectively to the different countries." 



In some countries, as in India, Ceylon, Mauritius, and Cochin China, 

 bananas are cultivated with fruits containing several fertile seeds, which 

 appear to belong to a wild form as yet slightly modified by cultivation. 



The Banana or Sweet Plantain (Musa sapientum.Lmu.). This is 

 the sweet fruit used without cooking, it has various names in different 

 parts of the world. The old voyagers called it " bonano." In the time of 

 Roxburgh the Hindu or Bengali name for the banana was " kulla." 

 Usually amongst Europeans in India the word " plantain " is used in a 

 general sense for both the banana and plantain. Latterly, however, even 

 in India, a distinction has been made in regard to the size and delicacy 

 of the fruit, the small being the banana and the large the plantain. The 

 Spaniards of tropical America call the banana " bacove," " bacooba," 

 or " pacooba," while in other Spanish countries varieties of the banana 

 are known as " cambur," or " camburi," or " platano guineo." The 

 English in the West Indies call the small and delicate bananas " fig- 

 bananas," or simply " figs." The French call the banana " bananes 

 des sages," or " figue banane." In the Malay Archipelago, pisang, 

 always translated "plantain," is used for both bananas and plantains. 

 The variety known as "pisang maas," or the golden pisang, appears 

 to come nearest to the banana as known elsewhere. 



One of the earliest a3counts of the banana and plantain is given by 

 Ligon in his History of Barbados, published in 1657. In this work 

 there are two wood cuts, drawn, as the author states, "by memory only," 

 showing the habits of the two plants and the fruit. Of the " bonano " 

 he says " it is of sweeter taste than the ' plantine,' and for that reason 

 the negroes will not meddle with it, for it is not so useful a 

 food." 



Dampier's description, published in his Voyages, some years later, 

 is more exact : — 



" The bonano tree is like the plantain for shape and bigness, nor easily 

 distinguishable from it but by its fruit, which is a great deal smaller, and 



