2 1 6 Baker. — A Synopsis of the 
those derived from M. sapientum , in quality and delicacy. 
Typical M. acuminata is wild and has fruits full of seed. From 
this several seedless cultivated varieties are immediately derived, 
differing in the colour of the leaves and fruit. They all have 
the leaves glaucous beneath, and in one form the waxy bloom 
is so copious that torches are made from it. Var. violacea , 
Kurz, has stems, leaves and flowers more or less tinged with 
dark purple, and purple 3-5-angled fruits with a thick beak. 
Its native name is Peesang teembaya or Peesang hoorang 
(Copper, or crab plantain). Var. culta , Kurz, is larger in all 
its parts, with much larger whitish or yellowish flowers and 
longer cylindrical or angled yellow or greenish seedless fruits. 
Of this there are 48 distinguishable varieties, of which the most 
curious is the Duck Plantain ( Peesang moolook behbek), the fruit 
of which has a beak nearly as long as its body. There is 
a fine series of these forms dried by Kurz from the Buitenzorg 
garden in the Calcutta herbarium and I refer here M. paradi- 
siaca, Zollinger, PL Jav. Exsic. No. 3530. Probably M. Berterii , 
Colla, Monogr. Musa, 57 ; M. aphurica {Rumph. Amboin. V, 
138, tab. 61, fig. 3), Miquel, FI. Ned. Bat. Ill, 589, which has 
green and leaf-like lower bracts and pale yellow ripe fruit 
a span long, is a variety of this species. I know nothing of 
M. Karang , Kurz, in Journ. Agric.-Hort. Soc. Ind. V, 164, of 
which the fruits are said to be angular, short, and thick-beaked, 
and the bracts yellow inside. 
A plant collected in the Andaman Islands by Kurz, with 
long-stalked rostrate fruits full of seed not more than an inch 
long including the beak, £ in. diam. when dried, and two 
numbers of his Burmese collection (Pegu, Yomah, 3282, 3283), 
with distinctly rostrate fruits full of seed, 2-2J in. long without 
any angles when ripe, may be forms of M. acuminata , but 
require further study in a living state. 
17. M. corniculata (Rumph. Amboin. V, 130), Lour. FI. Cochinch. 
644; Kurz, in Journ. Agric.-Hort. Soc. Ind. V, 161, 166, 
tabs. 2-4. Stem cylindrical, 10-12 ft. long, as thick as the 
human thigh. Leaves oblong, green, 5-6 ft. long; petiole 
i-ij ft. long. Panicle drooping, only the 2-3, rarely 4 lower 
bracts and flower-whorls developed, the former oblong- 
lanceolate, a foot long. Calyx deeply 5-toothed. Petal ovate- 
