
408 `- NOTES ON TROPICAL FRUITS. 
little fruits, each with a waxen blossom and huge projecting 
stigma at the end. These are the female flowers farthest 
from the end of the stem, while as successive purple leaves 
fall off (you may see the scars they leave on any bunch 
bananas), the male flowers are seen in closer rows and of the 
same waxen yellow color. The flowers are full of a good 
honey. Three or four months are required to ripen the 
fruit, and in the mean time the bunch of male flowers has 
withered and dropped away, and the ovaries of the female 
blossoms have swollen into bananas, it may be a foot long, 
and the huge bunch hangs down scarcely supported by the 
now withering stem. The fruit is ripe, and the banana has : 
done its work, and, if left alone, soon dries up and dies. 
From its base spring up shoots which may be transplanted. = 
If the stem is cut down to the ground as soon as the fruit 18 
gathered, the round bulbous rootstock sends up new leaves, 
-anda second plant matures much sooner than do the 
shoots. _ 
Although most banana bunches hang down in maturity, A 
kind is found on the Society Islands, whence it has been M- 
troduced to the Hawaiian, whose very large bunches of deep a 
orange-colored fruit stand up erect, forming ornamental 
rather than useful objects ; for their taste, even when cooked, 
is exceedingly disagreeable and acrid. The Brazilian bani- — 
na, so-called (and no attempt is made to give here the col 
rect names, as the nomenclature is hopelessly confused m 
different countries, and the bold writer who should attempt 
to write a monograph of this genus, would need all his cout 
age), is tall, rising to a height of fifteen, or even 
feet, and the fruit is yellow and excellent, rather vinous m 
flavor; these are the long yellow bananas common a” 
markets. The Chinese banana seldom exceeds five fort s 
height, the leaves are of a silvery hue, and the fruit quite 
aromatic. The Fei, or Tahitian banana, is similar w 
Brazilian but not so tall, and the fruit is angular, 
turning black when fully ripe, and the flesh is salmon 
twenty — 
=) poe See ees a 
Sesto 
ii 


