THE WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 93 



and the natives of the Pacific islands fully appreciate 

 the immense value of this plant, which sustains a 

 large part of the races inhabiting tropical regions. 



"We have the banana, in Florida at least, as a plant 

 of our own also. Here, as everywhere, it is not a 

 tree, but annual in its growth, although the root is 

 perennial. In one year the banana grows from the 

 root to about twelve feet high, bears its one bunch of 

 fruit and dies. Other shoots are however coming up 

 in the mean time from the root ; they in turn bear 

 their fruit, each after a year's growth, and this meth- 

 od of growing brings the plant into extensive and 

 beautiful groups. Every yard in Key West has its 

 banana patch, and the grand glossy leaves lend great 

 beauty to the humble cottage as well as to the impos- 

 ing mansion., 



For the plant sends up a single round and straight 

 stem of a yellowish green color, which terminates in 

 a fanlike expanse of large oval leaves, six feet long 

 and from eighteen to twenty inches in breadth. A 

 great strong midrib traverses the leaf, but the latter 

 is so tender that it is almost invariably torn into 

 shreds by the winds. The flower bud is purple, con- 

 trasting iinely with the green of the leaves. It ex- 

 pands into a noble spike of flowers about four feet 

 high, rising from the centre of the leaves eight or 

 nine months after the planting of the vegetable. 

 The flowers are soon followed by the fruit, which is 

 eight inches long by one in diameter. These long 

 spikes of fruit sometimes weigh 70 pounds, .and look 

 like a gigantic cluster of grapes formed of a large 



