Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/96

Rh same time, plume themselves now proudly, and with projecting breasts, and beautifully curved backs and heads, and beaks raised aloft, range themselves garland-like around the stem, and thus, in about two weeks time, they ripen into delicious bananas, and are cut off in bunches.

The whole of that dark purple-tinted bud-head is a thick cluster of such leaf-envelopes, each inclosing such an offspring. Thus releases itself, one leaf after another, and falls off; thus grows to maturity one cluster of fruit after another, until the thick stalk is as full as it can hold of their garlands: but, nevertheless, there always remains a good deal of the bud-head, which is never able to develope the whole of its internal wealth during the year in which the banana-tree lives; for it lives and bears fruit only one year and then dies. But before that happens, it has given life to a large family of young descendants, who grow up at its feet, and the eldest of which are ready to blossom and bear fruit when the mother-tree dies.

Such is the history of the banana-tree, Musa paradisiaca, as it is called in the Tropical Flora. And of a certainty it was at home in the first paradise, where all was good.

One can scarcely imagine anything prettier or more perfect than these young descendants, the banana children; they are the perfect image in miniature of the mother-tree, but the wind has no power upon their young leaves; they stand under the wing of the mother-tree, in paradisiacal peace and beauty.

It has been attempted to transplant the banana-tree into the southern portion of North America, where so many trees from foreign climates flourish: but the banana-tree will not flourish there, its fruit will not ripen; it requires a more equal, more delicious warmth: it will not grow without the paradisiacal life of the tropics.

Roasted banana is as common a dish at the breakfasts