banana blooms

As fall approached last year, the yard maintenance crews were cutting back crepe myrtles and oaks and banana trees. Throughout the neighborhood, banana trees were thinned and cut short. I was told not to worry, they come back after winter.

And so they did, with their broad youthful leaves, yellows, greens - some with burgundy undersides.

Many banana trees had little blooms, four to six inches, a deep pink, that grew upward, unfolded, and with time lost their petals as flowers are wont to do.

The banana trees, though, had two kinds of blooms, the ones I just mentioned and other, larger buds. I've only seen two of the latter in the year I've lived here, the great blooms, rich in ruby colors, that hang down glowing like a lantern, on a stalk that bears row after row of fruit, above my reach. The one I was able to see on the tree was lasting longer than the small blooms and attracted curious flies and bugs who seemed to find cover beneath the curled fringe at the top. I no longer have access to the photos I took, but there was a magical quality to the interaction between the little critters and the blooms. The stalk was big and thick with evidence of bananas or plantains produced in the past, and others in progress. This tree, nestled within a cluster of banana trees, was perhaps thirty feet or more high, and look to have been left untampered with over many years.

The first great bloom I saw, perhaps a foot long, I photographed over a week in time. Day to day, it would shift in appearance, but not open. One morning, I saw the big bloom had been severed, only the stump of the stem was to be found.

The second great bloom I found was on a street curb, also last fall, with the rest of the remains of a very large banana tree, waiting for the truck that collects yard debris. I picked up the bloom - with the stalk it may have weighed a good fifteen pounds or more. Though there are a number of banana trees (some neighbors call them 'banana plants') in the neighborhood, I've seen no more of the grand, lantern-like blooms.

I haven't seen this second type of bloom on younger plants. I've wondered whether these are just different varieties of banana trees, or if perhaps some banana trees have complex maturational stages. Perhaps the great living blooms do not appear until the tree has matured fully over many years, without interference with its development.