PLAXTAIXS. 



377 



THE PLANTAIN TREE (Miisa poradmaca), the banana tree (Mi/.sa 

 sajjienf inn), TB.E duke of Devonshire's plantain (Musa CavmdisMi), 



These plants attain the height of from fifteen to twenty feet of stem in 

 a natural state, ^Titll leaves often more than six feet long and two broad- 

 In a cultivated state, however, they produce theii* fi-uit when of the height 

 of from eight to twelve feet. The flowers are produced at the termination 

 of the stem, which, therefore, must on no account be shoitened, but 

 allowed to extend to its fall length. The flowers hang in long racemes, 

 or bunches, the fei*tile ones occupying the lower, and the barren ones the 

 upper part of the raceme. The friiit is a long, angular, fleshy bern', very 

 sweet and pleasant to eat. In the tropics, the spikes of fruit often ex- 

 ceed the weight of forty poimds, but so far as we are aware they have not 

 been produced in our hothouses above half that weight. 



" It is certainly one of the most usefid fruits in the world, and seems 

 to have migrated with mankind into all the chmates into which it 

 may be cultivated. The fruit is so much esteemed by ail Europeans who 

 settle in America, that the first thing they do is to estabhsh a plantain 

 walk ; enlarging it as their family increases. Some or other of the trees 

 are bearing most part of the year ; and then* fruit is often the whole food 

 on which a family subsists. Three dozen plantains are sufficient to serve 

 one man for a week, instead of bread, and \^ill suppoit him much better." 

 — Ency. of Plants. 



The fiTiit of the banana is shorter and rounder, and rather more luscious 

 in taste than the plantain : it can only be con^.dered as a variety of 

 the other, although botanists have described them as separate species, 

 with about as much reason as there would be in making the golden pippin 

 and the golden nob apple two distinct species of p%Tus. 



Both varieties have been fi-uited in this country, particularly at AVynn- 

 stay, the seat of Sh' ^Vatkin ^Vilhams Wynne, in Denbighshire, whence 

 specimens of the banana bet^'een fom* and five inches long were for- 

 warded to the Hoiticultm-al Society of London, in ] 819. The plant above 

 alluded to is described in the Transactions of the Society, vol. vi. p. 138, 

 as being planted in the pit of a - stove when about six feet high, vdxh. a 

 single stem. 



" In each succeeding year it has produced a bunch of fruit : but in the 

 present yeai' (1819), two bunches: the first was ripe in May, the other 

 in August, having about four dozen fruit on each bunch. The plant is 

 now sixteen feet high, and measures three feet roimd at the bottom." 



