68 IN FLORIDA. 



before we were ready to swallow any mental halluci- 

 nation, so rapidly does faith grow in the glorious, 

 and balmy air of Florida. 



If Jacksonville had been attractive, Pilatkawas 

 equally so. Opposite to it is the famous orange grove 

 of Mr. Hart, which we had to visit, and where we 

 ate our first oranges, plucked by ourselves from the 

 trees, beside tasting mandarins and tangerins, lem- 

 ons, limes, guava and bananas, and that best of all 

 oranges, the grape fruit. There were great planta- 

 tions of bananas, which grow by suckers from the 

 roots, and increase like weeds. They have to be three 

 years old before they bear, and the development of 

 the flower and fruit, which was going on while we 

 were there, was a pretty sight. The top of the stalk 

 turns over and produces a huge purple flower of a 

 single leaf, as large as the hand of a giant. From 

 under this large leaf starts a circle of small sprouts 

 like fingers. The big leaf falls off, but from the 

 ends of the fingers burst other, much smaller purple 

 flowers. Then below the row of fingers grows an- 

 other large flower like the first, and it also uncovers 

 another row of fingers, so on till the entire bunch of 

 bananas, as we know it in the market, is formed. 

 Even then the flower point does not cease growing, 

 but exhibits flower after flower, which are merely 

 ornamental and do not result in fruit. Sprouts start 

 so freely from the roots, that the young bushes have 

 to be cut away every year with scythes, or they would 

 become crowded, and the fruit degenerate. Every 

 day, that was spent studying the wonderful 



