This
transcript of Hill's description (Rep. Brisbane Bot. Gdn. 1874, 7) is from Simmonds
1956:
Musa
charlioi W. H. - Herbaceous, stem dingy green, simple, thickly clothed with sheathing
petioles of the leaves; leaves oblong five to six feet long, forming a tuft on the apex of
the stem, spadix nodding, fruit obliquely elliptical, oblong, three to four inches long,
fleshy, with numerous small hard dry seeds.
Hab.
- In rich alluvial soil on the banks of the Johnstone River.
A
new variety of what is popularly termed wild banana, called after one of the troopers of
the Native Police who was found very useful upon the expedition.
It
is an enormous shame that a banana species named for an aboriginal Australian called
Charlie in 1874 should ignominiously be reduced to nomen dubium et nudum.
In 1877 Sulpiz Kurz wrote that "Australia does not
yet cultivate the banana, and hence we are spared the doubtful pleasure of learning
amusing names of aborigines or colonists from this quarter of the globe".
Little did Kurz realise that when he cited Walter Hill as adding "two Australian bananas, viz., Musa Jackeyi and M.
Charlioi." he was indeed learning the nicknames of two Australian
aborigines.
Another
rather amusing slant on this species is provided by Simmonds who obviously thought that
Hill was hallucinating:
There
are obvious inaccuracies in this description (a stem thirty or forty feet tall that bore
leaves five to six feet long would be an extraordinary banana indeed) and not one useful
diagnostic character is given; there are no collections in Herb. Brisbane and it is
virtually certain that none exists. The name may well be rejected; the plant was
presumably either Musa acuminata subsp. banksii or Musa fitzalani.
Not
long after writing this Simmond's found an even more "extraordinary banana", Musa ingens, with pseudostems 10 - 15 m. tall and 2 m. in
girth at the base and leaves 5 m. long by 1 m. wide on petioles 60 cm. long. |