FRUITS 



63 



tree which stood in Paradise, whereof God forbade Adam and 

 Eve to eate. It smells like Roses, and hath a very good smell, 

 but the taste is better.' 



1. ' The fruit groweth out of the tree.' When the banana 

 has attained its full height, and the leaves their full size, 

 from the underground tuberous stem a flower-stalk begins to 

 grow. It pushes its way up through the hollow tube (which 

 looks like the trunk of a tree, but which is in reality formed 

 by the overlapping of the bases of the leaves) 

 and shoots forth from the top. 



' At the end of the stalk there groweth 

 a flower as bigge as an Estridge Egge.' This 

 is in reality not one flower but many clusters 

 of flowers, and each cluster is covered and 

 protected by a russet-coloured bract. These 

 bracts overlap one another and form a com- 

 pact mass like an ' Estridge Egge '. Gradually 

 the ' Egge ' lengthens and the bracts one by 

 one turn back and reveal their cluster of 

 flowers, after which both bract and flower 

 wither and die. The first flowers to appear 

 are the female ones which produce the fruits. 

 Towards the end of the stalk are male flowers. 

 When these male flowers wither no fruit is 

 left, so that there is always a bare space between the fruits 

 and the end of the stalk. 



When the fruits are formed their weight causes the stalk 

 to bend and hang down from the plant. A bunch of bananas 

 contains usually more than a hundred bananas and weighs 

 from 80 to 100 Ib. 



1 When the bunch is to be cut, the stem is partly cut through 

 five or six feet from the ground and then the whole plant 

 slowly topples over. . . . Several book-keepers on a large estate 

 will thus be entering the bunches, while the overseer or 

 manager riding from one to the other controls the number 

 cut for delivery that night or in the early morning at the wharf. 

 The bunches are wrapped in trash and handed up by two men 



BUNCH OF 



BANANAS 



