If a plant was cultivated in Eden by the grand old
gardener and his wife, as Lord Tennyson democratically styled them
(before his elevation to the peerage), we may fairly conclude that it
possesses a very respectable antiquity indeed.
The wild banana is a native of the Malay region, according to De
Candolle, who has produced by far the most learned and unreadable work
on the origin of domestic plants ever yet written. (Please don't give me
undue credit for having heroically read it through out of pure love of
science: I was one of its unfortunate reviewers.) The wild form produces
seed, and grows in Cochin China, the Philippines, Ceylon, and Khasia.
Like most other large tropical fruits, it no doubt owes its original
development to the selective action of monkeys, hornbills, parrots and
other big fruit-eaters; and it shares with all fruits of similar origin
one curious tropical peculiarity. Most northern berries, like the
strawberry, the raspberry, the currant, and the blackberry, developed
by the selective action of small northern birds, can be popped at once
into the mouth and eaten whole; they have no tough outer rind or
defensive covering of any sort. But big tropical fruits, which lay
themselves out for the service of large birds or monkeys, have always
hard outer coats, because they could only be injured by smaller animals,
who would eat the pulp without helping in the dispersion of the useful
seeds, the one object really held in view by the mother plant.
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