490 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



their industrious service with frequent draughts of nectar of her 

 own inimitable brew. 



While the flowers are thus developing and giving place to 

 fruits, the stalk of the bunch is lengthening and carrying the 

 clusters farther apart, making room for the growth of the fruits, 

 which pretty well keeps pace with that of the stalk. Very early 

 the stalk begins to bend over and, as soon as it has become long 

 enough, turns completely on itself. Thus the bud, and finally the 

 bunch of fruit, hang downward between the leaves. On the 

 other hand, the young bananas turn upward in their growth, and 

 come at last to point directly up. As the tip of the stalk still 

 lengthens, when the bananas are full grown it often hangs a yard 

 below them, tipped by the purple plummet of yet unfallen bracts. 

 It is by this sterile stalk that we see the bunches hung in our 

 shops ; that is, in a position just the reverse of that in which they 

 grow. 



In the Eastern tropics, the number of varieties and species of 

 bananas and banana-like plants is large ; but in America those 

 which are cultivated to any extent are very few. Indeed, of true 

 bananas we need notice only two. The common yellow variety, 

 which is almost exclusively that which our markets receive, is 

 the only one raised in Jamaica, and the chief one everywhere. 

 But in Cuba and Central America the stout, red-skinned variety 

 is still somewhat cultivated and occasionally shipped. It pro- 

 duces smaller bunches, but larger fruits, as a rule, than the yellow 

 one. Another plant, so like the banana in habit as to be prac- 

 tically indistinguishable, but with larger yellow fruits which are 

 eaten only when cooked, is the plantain. Its fruit is a staple arti- 

 cle of food with the natives of Jamaica ; and, when sliced and 

 fried in sweet cocoanut oil as a Creole cook can do it, is a dish to 

 tickle the palate on which the flesh-pots of Egypt pall. 



It is a matter of common observation that bananas contain no 

 seeds. Cultivation through unnumbered generations has led to 

 the atrophy of these organs through the substitution of a vegeta- 

 tive mode of propagation, much to the advantage of the eater of 

 the fruit, at least. Only in one or two isolated regions of the Old 

 World are the primitive seed-bearing bananas known. If we 

 examine the rounded mass at the base of a well-grown plant, 

 which is its true stem, there will be found one or more knob-like 

 outgrowths which are plainly large buds. As the plant becomes 

 older, these buds, or " eyes," as the banana grower calls them, 

 develop upward, breaking through the soil and unfolding their 

 first leaves. From the bases of their own stems, which are merely 

 differentiated bits of the stem of the parent plant, roots are sent 

 down ; and thus the shoots become separated or capable of sepa- 

 ration from the parent, and so, of independent life. At this stage 



