Bananas

When these ferns die back in the fall, as these ones are doing, they

send into their roots, or rhizomes, all the nutrition needed to reboot

themselves in the spring. As it happens, that little chunk of protein

is like the meat in a Brazil nut: just as sweet, white and nutty, and

about the same size and shape.



Because of the similarity in shape to a banana, that is what kids have

called the morsel. Picking bananas means digging up the rhizomes,

with a rock or a stick, for a snack in the woods.



There are a lot of wild foods that kids eat that their parents don't

know about. I have never heard of adults eating these bananas, but I

suspect that it is something Europeans learnt from the native people

hundreds of years ago.