BREAD PLANTS 57 



unlikely that we can all see the plant and taste 

 the loaves that hang like melons, as large as one's 

 head, from the axils of the huge, glossy leaves. 

 They are like the big, green oranges that hang on 

 the osage orange trees, and like the mulberries, 

 which are made of a great number of tiny fruits, all 

 grown together. These three fruits I mention for 

 the reason that the plants that bear them are all 

 near relatives in a big botanical family. 



The breadfruit tree grows to be thirty or forty 

 feet high in its home in the South Sea Islands. 

 Its blossoms, like those of many other plants, are 

 borne separately, the fertile ones clustered in 

 globular heads, the sterile ones in club-shaped 

 catkins. When the fruit ripens its surface is 

 rough still, for the huge mass is covered with the 

 aggregate tips of all the fertile flowers. 



The cultivated breadfruits have become, like 

 the bananas, practically seedless. The soft pulp 

 is fibrous only at the centre. So its food value' 

 has been increased, at the expense of the seed- 

 making function of the plant. 



One of the romantic chapters of horticulture 

 is the adventure of Lieutenant Bligh, who was 

 commissioned by the British Government to go to 

 Tahiti and get young plants of the breadfruit 

 tree and take them to planters on the West Indian 



