328 



ESSENTIALS OF BOTANY 



or more, and when well grown producing from one hun- 

 dred to five hundred pounds of fruit a year. Successful 

 attempts are now under way to introduce date culture 

 into some of the hottest portions of the United States, 

 and it is likely to be an important industry in central 

 Arizona, the Colorado Desert in 

 California, and several other arid 

 or semi-arid areas. 



The Pineapple family furnishes 

 only one valuable fruit, the pine- 

 apple, grown especially in Florida, 

 the West Indies, the Azores, and 

 Hawaii. 



The Banana family furnishes, in 

 the shape of bananas, the main food 

 of multitudes of the poorer inhab- 

 itants of the tropics. The plant 

 is herbaceous, though it sometimes 

 reaches a height of forty feet, with 

 leaves as much as ten feet long 

 (Plate XIII). The familiar fruit 

 (technically, a berry) has by long 

 cultivation become seedless. It has 

 a much higher nutritive value than 

 most fruits and is rapidly coming 

 into favor among us, the annual 

 imports into the United States hav- 

 ing increased from about 500,000 bunches in 1872 to some 

 40,000,000 bunches at present. A few bananas are grown 

 in southern Florida and the delta portion of the j\Iississippi, 

 but the main product comes from the West Indies and 

 Central America. 



Fig. 228. A Coffee Twig, 

 with Berries. (Reduced.) 



