The banana is one of the oldest known fruits in history. The earliest men of whom there is any record already knew and enjoyed this fruit!

It is believed that the banana first grew in southern Asia and that through many centuries it spread through the East and to the West. The Mohammedans called the banana tree a paradise tree, and the Hindus believed the banana tree was sacred to their goddess Kali.

Early in the sixteenth century, a priest named Father Tomas de Berlanga brought some roots of the banana plant with him to the New World. He hoped to win the friendship of the Indians with this mellow, golden fruit, and thus to convert them. From those few roots which he brought over developed all the thousands of acres of banana plantations which now exist in the tropical regions of the Americas!

The Indians, incidentally, put the banana fruit to many uses. They roasted it when green, and ate it for bread. They boiled it as a vegetable, included it in stews, dried it like figs, and even made a strong fermented drink of it!

The banana does not really grow on a tree, but on a plant. It is probably the largest plant in existence without a woody stem. The stalk, which grows from 3.5 to 9 meters and looks like a tree trunk, is really a firm mass of leaf sheaves. Most cultivated varieties of bananas have lost the power of producing seeds.

At the top of the plant is a huge tuft of drooping leaves, bright green in color, making it look somewhat like a palm tree. One large flower bud grows from the central stalk and, in due time, gives place to the fruit. As the bunch of fruit grows heavier, the stalk bends downward, so that the bananas hang with their points up. Only one bunch of bananas grows on each plant, but a bunch often weighs 45 kilograms or more!

Bananas are always cut while green, even when they are not to be shipped anywhere. The reason is that if they are allowed to ripen on the plant, they burst and spoil before they can be picked. Bananas are shipped in special vessels built for carrying bananas. They have to be ventilated by currents of cool air so that the fruit doesn’t ripen on the voyage.