198 SUBTROPICAL PLANTS FOR THE PLOWER GARDEN. 



in tlie flower garden is Musa Ensete — the great Abyssinian 

 Banana, discovered by Bruce. The fruit of this kind is 

 not edible, like that of the Banana and Plantain (Musa 

 paradisiaca and sapientum), but the leaves are magnificent ; 

 and, strange to say, they stand the rain and storms of the 

 neighbourhood of Paris without laceration, while all the 

 other kinds of Musa become torn into shreds. It is an 

 interesting and hitherto unknown fact, that the finest of all 

 the Banana or Musa tribe is also the hardiest and most 

 easily preserved. When grown for the open air, it will of 

 course require to be kept in a house during winter, and 

 planted out the first week in June. In any place where 

 there is a large conservatory or winter garden, it will be 

 found most valuable, either for planting therein, or for 

 keeping over the winter, as, if merely housed in such a 

 structure during the cold months, it wiU prove a great 

 ornament among the other plants, while it may be put out 

 in summer when the attraction is all out of doors. Other 

 kinds of Musa have been tried in the open air in England, 

 but have barely existed, making it clear that they should 

 not be so cultivated in this country. The Ensete is the 

 only species really worth growing in this way. Where the 

 climate is too cold to put it out of doors in summer, it 

 should be grown in all conservatories in which it is 

 desired to establish the noblest type of vegetation. It has 

 hitherto been generally grown in stoves. It also stands the 

 drought and heat of a living room remarkably well, and 

 though, when well developed, it is much too big for any 

 but Brobdingnagian halls, the fact may nevertheless be 

 taken much advantage of by those interested in room de- 

 coration on a large scale. The plant is difficult to obtain 

 as yet, but will, I trust, be sought out and made abundant 

 by our nurserymen. 



Last September I saw a fine plant of this Musa that had 

 remained in the open ground in Baron Haussmann^s garden 

 in the Bois de Boulogne drndng the preceding winter. It 

 was left in the position in which it grew during the summer 

 of 1867, and in the month of November covered with a 

 little thatched shed, the space about the plant being filled 



