BANANAS HAVE NO SEEDS 
from their roots. This may go on for ten to fifteen or 
twenty years from the same planting. 
The banana plant has the habit of growing its young 
ones at its roots in this way. It does not need to produce 
seed to keep its kind going in the world. It has therefore 
stopped producing them. 
The fact that it yields fruit shows, however, that there 
was a time when it needed seeds to replant itself. Ba¬ 
nana plants growing in the wild state yield no fruit. 
They grow in a sort of jungle, as do their cousins, the 
purple cannas that people set out in their gardens. 
But man found out a long time ago that if he set out 
banana plants in rich soil and gave them plenty of room 
they would produce fruit. It has been so long since they 
needed the seed, however, that it has lost its spark of life 
and will not grow. Along the middle of the banana may 
be seen the markings of what were once seeds. 
But man has learned how to take advantage of the fact 
that bananas once grew seeds and has reaped the harvest 
of a splendid fruit eaten by hundreds of millions of 
people. 
23 
