10 THE BANANA 



round the axis. The clusters at the base of the stalk 

 become the " hands " of the fruiting bunch. It will be 

 found that the flowers in different regions of the stalk 

 vary in the proportion of the length of the ovary (the 

 future banana) to that of the rest of the flower. In those 

 clusters which eventually become hands, the ovary is 

 two-thirds the length of the whole flower ; higher up on 

 the stalk are clusters in which the ovary is about one-half 

 the length of the flower ; and still higher, there is another 

 series in which the ovary is about one-third of the flower. 

 These three sets of flowers, clearly distinguishable by the 

 different proportionate length of the ovary, are physio- 

 logically very different : those with the long ovary are 

 female flowers and become the fruit ; those with the short 

 ovary are male flowers ; and those with the ovary about 

 half the length of the flower are hermaphrodite (male and 

 female) flowers or neuter flowers (neither male nor female), 

 and form short useless fingers in the bunch (Fig. 4, ab). 

 The problem of increasing the number of hands in the 

 bunch must be attacked at a stage earlier than its ap- 

 pearance in the embryonic condition described. 



Each cluster has its own covering or " bract," which fits 

 closely over it and over the rest of the flowering stalk, 

 until the flowers of the cluster to which it belongs are 

 mature, when the bract falls. 



In some allied species the flower stalk (inflorescence) 

 remains upright, but in the banana and plantain the bunch 

 hangs down on emergence from the trunk. The floral 

 envelope and stamens drop from the female flower, and 

 the ovaries the future fruits gradually turn upward. 

 The effect of the pendulous habit with reversed upright 

 fruit is to increase the flow of sap into the fruit. 



When the embryonic flowers are first recognizable as 

 such, the flower stalk is a short projection at the apex of 

 the bulb in the hollow base of the trunk in its interior. 

 The formation of flowers only takes place when growth 

 in height, and also of the leaves of the plant, has practically 

 come to an end, and when there is sufficient stored food 



