Briefly, then, it appears to me most probable that the species was early introduced by the Spanish and Portuguese into San Domingo and Brazil, and I confess that this implies that Garcilasso was in error with regard to Peruvian traditions. If, however, later research should prove that the banana existed in some parts of America before the advent of the Europeans, I should be inclined to attribute it to a chance introduction, not very ancient, the effect of some unknown communication with the islands of the Pacific, or with the coast of Guinea, rather than to believe in the primitive and simultaneous existence of the species in both hemispheres. The whole of geographical botany renders the latter hypothesis improbable, I might almost say impossible, to admit, especially in a genus which is not divided between the two worlds. In conclusion, I would call attention to the remarkable way in which the distribution of varieties favours the opinion of a single species—an opinion adopted, purely from the botanical point of view, by Roxburgh, Desvaux, and R. Brown. If there were two or three species, one would probably be represented by the varieties suspected to be of American origin, the other would belong, for instance, to the Malay Archipelago or to China, and the third to India. On the contrary all the varieties are geographically intermixed, and the two which are most widely diffused in America differ sensibly the one from the other, and each is confounded with or approaches very nearly to Asiatic varieties. +Pine-Apple+—_Ananassa sativa_, Lindley; _Bromelia Ananas_, Linnæus. In spite of the doubts of a few writers, the pine-apple must be an American plant, early introduced by Europeans into Asia and Africa. _Nana_ was the Brazilian name,[1550] which the Portuguese turned into _ananas_. The Spanish called it _pinas_, because the shape resembles the fruit of a species of pine.[1551] All early writers on America mention it.[1552] Hernandez says that the pine-apple grows in the warm regions of Haiti and Mexico. He mentions a Mexican name, _matzatli_. A pine-apple was brought to Charles V., who mistrusted it, and would not taste it.