qa) Ensete gillettii is established as an indigenous magical plant in West Africa and as such
has an old
reconstructible root, *kom, in Benue-Congo languages.
qb) Plantains are introduced by an unknown
route to West
Central Africa >3000 BP and the #kom root is transferred to them. It is likely
that taro and water-yam
are introduced at the same period.
qc) The plantain becomes a crucial cultigen
in the exploitation
of the Central African rainforest and thus one of the engines of the Bantu
expansion.