2 BULLETIN 55, HAWAII EXPERIMENT STATION 
early inhabitants of the East believed that the banana plant was 
the source of good and evil and that the serpent which tempted Eve 
hid in a bunch of the fruit. Undoubtedly this legend influenced the 
early classifiers who designated two species of the plant as Musa 
paradisiaca (Fruit of Paradise) and M. sapientum (Fruit of 
Knowledge). 
The banana is widely scattered over the tropical world and is most 
successfully cultivated in a hot, damp climate. In many countries 
it is as important to the inhabitants as are grain plants to those living 
in cooler regions. The northern limit of cultivation, usually of the 
Cavendish variety, is reached in Florida south of 29° latitude, in the 
Canary Islands, and in Egypt; the southern limit in South Brazil, 
Natal, East Africa, and in the southern part of Queensland, 
Australia. 
The term " Hawaiian bananas " includes a number of varieties in 
use by the natives when the islands became known to Europeans 
following the discovery by Captain Cook in 1778. As a result of 
the study of the people and flora of the Hawaiian Islands it is 
thought that the banana was dispersed among the Pacific Islands by 
the Polynesians in their migrations, as the bulblike rhizomes, when 
partly dry, prove admirably adapted to long distance transportation, 
and varieties found growing in these islands exist in other island 
groups of the tropical Pacific. The Maoli group of bananas, for 
example, is in many respects very similar to that known by the same 
name in other islands of the south and central Pacific. There are 
also related varieties of both the Hawaiian Iholena and Popoulu 
groups. The Mai a hapai banana of Hawaii has the unusual habit of 
maturing its fruit within the trunk (IS, p. 53), which is characteristic 
of a variety in Java. The Hawaiian varieties are practically all of 
the starchy plantainlike kind — most palatable when they are cooked — 
and their botanical characters are more like those of varieties of the 
species sapientum than of the species paradisiaca, to which the plan- 
tain is usually assigned. 
The Polynesians fully appreciate the importance of establishing 
these seedless food plants where neither drought nor flood can exter- 
minate them. The corms are planted in the higher mountain gorges 
where they are insured against lack of moisture, and freshets aid in 
distributing certain of the rootstocks and suckers throughout the 
valleys below. The response which most of these varieties make to 
cultivation gives evidence that they are highly developed fruit plants 
which once were adapted to cultivation, but in recent times have 
lapsed into a semiwild condition. 
NOMENCLATURE 
The common name " banana " was adopted from the language of an 
African Kongo tribe, and first came into use during the sixteenth 
century. Prior to that time the fruit was called " apple of Paradise " 
and "Adam's fig." The name " banana " seems to have been borne 
for a long period by the fruit which was eaten raw. The term 
'* plantain " was given to a variety which, though closely related to 
the banana, is edible only after being cooked. Both these fruits 
belong to the genus Musa of the Musacese or Banana family, natural 
order Scitaminacese. The botanist Linnaeus (1707-1778) gave the 
