But
practical man, with his eye always steadily fixed on the one important
quality of edibility--the sum and substance to most people of all
botanical research--has confined his attention almost entirely to the
fruit of the banana. In all essentials (other than the systematically
unimportant one just alluded to) the banana fruit in its original state
exactly resembles the capsule of the iris--that pretty pod that divides
in three when ripe, and shows the delicate orange-coated seeds lying in
triple rows within--only, in the banana, the fruit does not open; in the
sweet language of technical botany, it is an indehiscent capsule; and
the seeds, instead of standing separate and distinct, as in the iris,
are embedded in a soft and pulpy substance which forms the edible and
practical part of the entire arrangement.
This is the proper appearance of the original and natural banana, before
it has been taken in hand and cultivated by tropical man. When cut
across the middle, it ought to show three rows of seeds, interspersed
with pulp, and faintly preserving some dim memory of the dividing wall
which once separated them. In practice, however, the banana differs
widely from this theoretical ideal, as practice often _will_ differ
from theory; for it has been so long cultivated and selected by
man--being probably one of the very oldest, if not actually quite the
oldest, of domesticated plants--that it has all but lost the original
habit of producing seeds.
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