Page 6 - Tropical glasshouses
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4 Durian Durio zibethinus This is known as the ‘king of the fruit’ but also as the ‘stinky fruit’, because of the hydrogen sulphide content. Our specimen is still small. When
the plant owers, the owers grow straight out of the trunk or on thick branches so that the fruit, which
can each weigh up to 8 kilo (17 lbs), do not sag onto the ground.
5 Banana Musa x paradisiaca Seedless bananas are cultivated
in the tropics, because they are nicer to eat than the ones with pips.
The young plants grow from the rhizomes of the mother plant, so all progeny are genetically identical. This means that if one specimen is susceptible to a particular disease they all are. There are seven di erent species of banana growing in this glasshouse including wild bananas, which are full of pips.
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