NOTES ON THE PLANTAIN AND BANANA TREES.
(See page 385, vol. i.)
If we regard the immense varieties of the vegetable kingdom, their peculiar forms, large and minute flowers of splendid tints, and delicious fruits,—we find them all conduce to the happiness and luxury of man—affording him raiment, food, and adding to the comforts of his existence.
When we contemplate the vegetable productions of nature, we find that they impart a tranquillity to the mind, which the animal kingdom, ever slaves to conflicting passions, can never produce;—when suffering from violent emotions, an indescribable degree of repose is felt while viewing the tranquil but beautiful scene of a well-furnished garden, or the more magnificent grandeur of forest scenery. A calmness is produced, which, counteracting our more violent passions, leads us back to our sober reason, and to reflection.
Among the splendid, varied, and profuse vegetation, with which tropical countries abound in so infinite a degree, the magnificent, herbaceous plant, the Plantain tree, usually attracts particular notice; and, together with the cocoa and other palms, are the productions of the vegetable kingdom which adorn the picture of the artist, when depicting the scenery of the tropics. The broad leaves overhang gracefully the succulent and huge stem of this plant; whilst, just at their bases, huge clusters of fruit, of yellow, red, and other colours, contrast harmoniously with the shining, dark-green foliage.
The size this splendid plant usually attains is eight feet; but I have seen them at the elevation of twelve, and even fifteen feet, with a diameter of stalk from one foot to two feet. The stem is formed partly from the united petioles of the leaves; and they are said to contain such a quantity of spiral vessels, that they are capable of being pulled out by handfuls, and are actually collected, in the West Indies, and sold as tinder: or, according to the quotation from “Decandolle’s Organographie Végétale,” tom. i. p. 38, “the top of the Plantain tree appears to be composed almost entirely of spiral vessels, when cut across; and so abundant are they, as to be collected in handfuls, in the Antilles, and form a kind of tinder.”
The number of threads capable of being drawn from each convolution of these spiral vessels, is from seven, as M. de la Chesnay has calculated even to twenty-two. (Idem, p. 37.) The young shoots of the Banana trees make an excellent edible.
The threads procured from the stalks of some species of this family are used for very fine and delicate-textured linen and muslin. At Manilla there is an extensive manufacture of muslins and sinamaya, or grass cloth, from the coarsest to the finest texture it is possible to manufacture, and, sometimes it has been stated, “made of fibres so fine, that they require to be manufactured under water, because, if exposed to the sun and air, they become too fragile to work.”[145] The coarsest fibres of the same plant form the Avaca, or Manilla hemp of commerce, used in the manufacture of cordage. The species of Musa is called M. textilis; but I do not consider it at all accurately known: it forms plantations at Manilla, but I could never see it during my visit to that country.
Finlayson gives the following interesting information respecting the wild Plantain tree, found on the island of Pulo Ubi, off the southern extremity of Cambodia.
“We had,” he says, “the good fortune to find that splendid herbaceous plant in flower: unlike, however, to that luscious and most delicious fruit raised by the hand of man, the fruit of the wild Plantain contains scarce any pulp whatever. Its leathery sheath incloses numerous series of large black seeds, attached to a pithy, central stem, and immersed in a gummy substance resembling birdlime.
“It appeared, by our systematic works, that the seeds of this most useful plant have been but rarely seen by botanists; hence doubts had been expressed upon the subject. In none of the cultivated varieties are there any seeds discoverable; though, at times, we may observe minute black points in the pulp, disposed in longitudinal rows. These are, probably, the feeble traces of seeds not yet quite extinguished by cultivation, the black perisperm being the last to disappear. The seeds were numerous, covered with a thick, black, brittle shell, and as large as those of the custard apple, but of a more irregular shape.
“There is no necessity to refer, as Willdenow does, the origin of all the cultivated varieties, and of all the species enumerated by botanists, to the Musa troglodytarum, a native of the Molucca Islands, as the parent stock. Our specimens accorded with the descriptions given of Musa sapientum. The seeds were in all respects perfect, and apparently capable of propagating the plant. Indeed, its existence on these islands, so rarely frequented by man, and altogether unfit for cultivation, can be accounted for on no other principle than the fertility of the seeds.”[146]
It is, however, curious (and whether it depends on the fertility of the soil, I will leave for the decision of others) that the Fehi, or Wild Plantain tree, (Musa Fehi,) which is found growing so luxuriantly about the declivities of the mountains, has no seeds in its fruit. Sometimes a few straggling plants are found in the romantic valleys of the beautiful island of Tahiti, (and also others of the Polynesian Islands,) propagating themselves by suckers: so dense at some places have I seen them, that they appear almost united into one mass. The fruit produced from this species is large, full, of a dark orange colour, (which contrasts harmoniously with the very dark green colour of the foliage,) containing a bright yellow pulp; and although in a perfectly wild state, does not contain any seeds: its taste, when perfectly ripe, is sweetish, but with a roughness or astringency of flavour, so that they are usually preferred roasted, by which their flavour is evidently very much improved. This species also yields, from the trunk, a quantity of a dark, purplish juice, which I did not find was used by the natives for any purpose, but it may, probably, be applicable as a dye.
At the Society Islands, the natives dry and press the ripe fruit of the Banana, which forms in that state an excellent sweetmeat, and might be probably a profitable export to Sydney, (N. S. Wales,) where it is now occasionally seen when sent as a present to some resident at that town.
It is related in Cook’s First Voyage, whilst in Endeavour River, that a “party returned about noon, with a few palm cabbages, and a bunch or two of wild plantains; the plantains were the smallest I had ever seen, and the pulp, although it was well-tasted, was full of small stones.”[147]
Captain King stated to me that he attempted to find this tree during his stay at Endeavour River, when he surveyed the Australian coasts, but his researches were unsuccessful. In another part of the same volume,[148] it is stated of the Bananas, at Batavia—“There is one which deserves the particular notice of the botanist, because, contrary to the nature of its tribe, it is full of seeds, and is therefore called Pisang batu, or Pisang bidgie; it has, however, no excellence to recommend it to the taste, but the Malays use it as a remedy for the flux.”
Where grass or hay cannot be procured, voyagers will find the succulent stem and leaves of this plant, as well as the leaves of the Dracæna terminalis, an excellent substitute, for feeding goats and other animals.