This Banana?

Do You Know

From Ronald Gatty, 140 College Avenue, Ithaca, New York, USA — who is a student son of Mr. Marold Gatty, of Suva, Fiji.

VERY interesting work on the origin and distribution of the Upright Banana (Musa Troglytarum to the botanists) has been done by Professor Mac Daniels, who has been on sabbatical leave from Cornell University. The Professor has advised the South Pacific Commission on their Project E 6, which is for the improvement of economic vege tation on coral atolls.

The Upright Banana—known as fe'i to the Tahitians, and as soaqa to the Fijians, is important in that the Poly nesians carried it with them on their eastward migrations. In the rare cases where it produces seeds, they are not viable. The plant must be reproduced vegetatively, and its only means of dis semination is by man.

Mac Daniels believes its origin was in eastern New Guinea or the Solomons, and he thinks that the Polynesians, going generally eastward just north of New Guinea, must have on some occasion gone south, to the origin of the banana, and there picked it up, carried it with them on their long migrations into the Pacific.

This species of banana, taken to Tahiti, Rarotonga and the Marquesas, was later carried on secondary migrations to Hawaii, where it was evidently not as widely used.

Pacific Islands residents, especially missionaries and Government men, could supply information concerning the ban ana which would be very much appre ciated. Would you publish a request that Islanders who live in the Solomons or Eastern New Guinea, and who are famil iar with this species, write me (at address given) concerning its location. Photo graphs of the plant in flower, or fruit, would be useful in identification, if they are available.

This species is readily recognised be cause its fruit grows upright instead of hanging down. It cannot be confused with other kinds of banana growing “upright,” for it alone has a characteristic purple juice.