Note 16 — PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.
Elizabeth Juliana Sabine translation
p. 22.—“Since the earliest infancy of human civilisation.”
In all tropical countries we find the cultivation of the Banana or Plantain established from the earliest times with which tradition or history make us acquainted. It is certain that in the course of the last few centuries African slaves have brought new varieties to America, but it is equally certain that Plantains were cultivated in the new world before its discovery by Columbus. The Guaikeri Indians at Cumana assured us that on the Coast of Paria, near the Golfo Triste, when the fruits were allowed to remain on the tree till ripe, the plantain sometimes produced seeds which would germinate; and in this manner plantains are occasionally found growing wild in the recesses of the forest, from ripe seeds conveyed thither by birds. Perfectly formed seeds have also sometimes been found in plantain fruits at Bordones, near Cumana. (Compare my Essai sur la Géographie des Plantes, p. 29; and my Relat. hist. T. i. pp. 104 and 587, T. ii. pp. 355 and 367.)
I have already remarked elsewhere (Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 191; English edition, p. 156), that Onesicritus and the other companions of Alexander, while they make no allusion to the tall arborescent ferns, speak of the fan-leaved umbrella palm, and of the delicate and always fresh verdure of the cultivated plantains or bananas. Among the Sanscrit names given by Amarasinha for the plantain or banana (the Musa of botanists) there are bhanu-phala (sun-fruit), varana-buscha, and moko. Phala signifies fruit in general. Lassen explains the words of Pliny (xii. 6), “arbori nomen palæ, pomo arienæ” thus: “The Roman mistook the word pala, fruit, for the name of the tree; and varana (in the mouth of a Greek ouarana) became transformed into ariena. The Arabic mauza may have been formed from moko, and hence our Musa. Bhanu-fruit is not far from banana-fruit.” (Compare Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, Bd. i. S. 262, with my Essai politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, T. ii. p. 382, and Rel. hist. T. i. p. 491.)