The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-08-16
THE BAHANA.


 Robert Blight in New York Evening Post. How few of those who give glance of momentary admiration at the gold. en piles on fruit stalls. or who munch a banana just for the sake of eating something. reflect that here Is a fruit with a history: and yet 1t Is highly probable that the banana is the Oldest product Of human tillage." We will not debate on its digestibility. or its utility. for-'de gustibus non disputan- dum." but 1t may be worth while brief ly to study banana history.
 If we wish to be accurate, we must say that the banana Is a member of the order Musaceae. so called by Lin naeus, probably with classical refer ence, seeing that he named kindred plants Urania and Heliconia. Critical scholars may. however, tell you that the name is derived from the Arabic "mouz," or "mauwz," but am sceptical on this point There are sev- eral species of musa. one in particular -musa textilis-being of the utmost importance to our commercial indus tries, as the source from which we ob- tain manilla hemp. Another has been of immense service in Polynesia in af- fording unlimited supplies of food to the South Sea Islanders. It is musa chinesis, a plant of which was given by the Duke of Devonshire to the mis- sionary John Williams, who establised it in Samoa only short time before he was murdered on Erromanga, The ,ba- mana of commerce is called musa sa- pientum, perpetrating a story told by the Roman naturalist, Pliny, that Alex ander the Great found the banana in India. and, that it was the custom for the eastern sages to sit under its shade and eat its fruit. This name being giv- en to the banana of commerce, the plantain, which is used as food before ripening, was called musa paradisaia- ca also perpetuating a legend that 1t was that "Tree of the knowledge of good and evil," for the fruit of which inquisitive Eve is said to have bartered the happiness of all her children, There is. every reason to believe that these two are one and the same plant, and, therefore it is proposed to use only the name sapientum, and to connect the banana with the sages rather than with so melancholy an event as that sung of by Milton:
 "of mans first disobedience and the
 fruit
 Of that forbidden tree.
 Regarding the banana in the light of its relationship to other plants, we find that 1t belongs to the lily type, and is not far removed from the common iris. Differences exist, of course, such as that the flowers and fruit are clus- tered together on a hanging spike. in- stead of growing solitary, as in the true irises. There is no mistaking this lily type, if you will familiarize yourself with the six petals, six stamens, ana three rows of seeds, and you have only to look at the blossom of the banana, or at a we'll shaped angular specimen of the fruit, to knaw where in the vege- table kingdom you must place 1t.
 Man, however, in some tropical clim- ate was struck with the food value of the seed vessel. It may have been some peculiarly succulant specimen he gathered, and in gathering it may have torn off the portion of the stem on which 1t grew. Having eaten the seed- vessel and found it not unpalatable, he stuck the branch. or stamlet, into the earth, and, some time after, found that 1t not only had survived, but pro- duced other seed-vessels for him. And so the system went on. By selecting time after time. g form was at last se- cured in which all the reproductive tendencies are almost eliminated and the seed-vessel, still retaining its lily type shape, has become a receptacle, not for seeds, but for 3 sweet and fleshy pulp, This tropical mans ef- forts have been crowned with such suc- cess that now we have what is practi- cally seedless fruit Similar results have been, or are being, attained in other plants, as in the orange, in the pineapple, and in grapss-notably in those which we know in the dried state as "currants," which is merely cor- ruption of "Cqrinthian" grapes.
 It may we'll be that the fruits of trop- ical and subtropical countries respond more readily to the calls made upon them by man, for notwithstanding the long centuries of apple culture we have not yet arrived at g. seedless variety of that fruit of the temperate regions. Pears seem to be yielding, but plums maintain their right to produce seeds, and in a very hard shell too. Perhaps, after all. there is some truth !n;ascrib- ing sturdiar characteristics to the in- habitants of the temperate regions whether vegetable, animal or human.
 How long ago this selection by dom- estioation took place in the case of the banana it is impossible to say. De CandoIle, still the greateyt authority on the Origin of Cultivated Plants.' speaks, in sentence which Is almost incomprehensible, of great antiquity of culture" of g primitive existence" and of "a diffusion contemporary with, or even anterior to. that of the human races" He can scarcely wish us to imply that the eraRg,ontang took to gardening in . sudden of intellectual development prior to the appearance on earth of -Four first parents" If so, I fear we must add his Malayan ape. ship to the list of degenerate races. ~
 However this may lha. the habit in- duced y,the kelecttcn hes become what may be resekyedlY called permanent; and the plant hss hacoms ens the most 1 iya .-.4..- as....1 ,.ss2 !. :. Y '.