456 



THE PLANTAIN AND BANANA. 



unknown. Its fruit has been consumed as a substitute for bread, but 

 for all other purposes it has been valueless. 



The plantain is, to many thousands of people, what rice is to the 

 Hindoos, rye flour to the Muscovite, and wheaten bread to the English- 

 man ; it is their main dependence (in more senses than one), their 

 staff of life, grown everywhere in small quantities thi'oughout the 

 tropics. 



Those who have never lived in tropical countries are unable to fully 

 appreciate its value. Some look even with indifference upon the 

 gigantic clusters of this fruit, as they are unloaded from the steamers 

 and sailing vessels ; and yet they deserve special attention and 

 admiration, for they are to the inhabitants of the torrid zone what 

 bread and potatoes are to those of the north temperate zone. 



The plantain is one of the most striking illustrations of tropical 

 fertility and exuberance. A plant which, in a northern climate, 

 would require many years to gain strength and size, is there the pro- 

 duction of ten or twelve months, The native of the south plants a 

 shoot or sucker, taken from an old tree, in a moist and sandy soil, 

 along some river or lake ; it develops with the greatest rapidity, and 

 at the end of ten months the first crop may be gathered, though the 

 cluster and bananas are yet small ; but the following year one cluster 

 alone will weigh some sixty or more pounds. Even in the tropics they 

 are always cut down w'heu green, as they lose much of their flavour 

 when left to ripen or soften on the tree. 



It is remarkable that the plantain and banana should be indigenous, 

 or at all events cultivated for ages both in the Old and the New World. 

 Numerous South American travellers describe some one of these plants 

 as being apparently indigenous articles of food among the natives ; 

 thus showing (if the plantain be a hybrid) a communication between 

 the tropics of America, Asia, and Africa, long before the time of 

 Columbus. (A hybrid, or mule plant, is obtained by impregnating 

 the stigma of one species with the j)ollen of another species, but of the 

 same genus, and what is called a cross breed is the impregnation of one 

 variety with the jDollen of another variety of the same species.) The 

 older waiters on the colony of Guiana, as Hartsinck, Bellin, and others 

 consider the plantain to be a native. It is worthy of remark that Sir 

 E. Schomburgk, during his travels found a species of large edible 

 plantain far in the interior. The plantain is said to have been trans- 

 ported from Guinea to the Canary Isles, and from thence to the West 

 Indies. It seems to have migrated with mankind from Asia into the 

 numerous islands in the Southern Pacific Ocean, where it is universal 

 in those which are inhabited, and has degenerated into numerous 

 varieties. It spreads from the Islands of the Pacific and of the Indian 

 Archipelago, northward to China and Jaj)an, and along the Malayan 

 Peninsula to Chittagong. From Chittajong northward, along the 

 jungly base of the Himalayas, there is a suitable climate as far as 

 30^ N., for the Musa nepalensis is found in Nepaul. The most northern 

 latitudes where the plantain is cultivated are Japan, Madeira, the north 

 of Africa, Syria as far as 34°, and ]3arts of the south of Europe. 

 The edible plantain bears at an elevation of 4590 feet in a temjie- 

 rdture of 61° Fahr., and requires 15 months to mature, but its culti« 



