Blooming Bananas

I haven’t spent much time recently in the north conservatory at Brookside Gardens since I am generally coming to volunteer at the Wings of Fancy exhibit. Yesterday I took the short cut from the ticket taker area through the green house and a corner of the north conservatory on the way to the staff/volunteer room and noticed some petals on the floor. I looked up. The banana tree had blooms! Somehow in all the years I’ve been visiting Brookside and noting the banana trees in that corner, I’d never caught it in this stage of development. Wow! My first impression was that the flowers reminded me of orchids, but bananas are more closely related to the gingers evidently.

Seeing the banana flowers was the best bit of serendipity of the day!