Ananas comosus (Pineapple)

Today was a pineapple day, largely because we're traveling and it was easy to cut up some pineapple chunks for the road.

As ubiquitous as pineapples are, they are noteworthy as a rare opportunity to eat a bromeliad. There are over 1,200 species of bromeliads – members of the Bromeliaceae family. Most are inedible and survive only in tropical and subtropical climates. The family is most famous for numerous species of epiphytes, non-parasitic plants that grow on other trees, bushes, shrubs... really just about any other surface in a warm humid place. Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) is perhaps that example that will be most familiar to North Americans.

Bromeliads also include a large number of terrestrial species, of which A. comosus is one. The plant is ingedigenous to South America, but it is has become widely propagated throughout the tropics. Perhaps on account of its sweetness, it has also found a home the cuisines of places as far flung as Hawaii and West Africa.

A. comosus itself is surprising small given the size of its fruit. A full grown pineapple plant is only 5 or 6 feet tall. I know several people who have successfully grown pineapples, starting them from the leaves at the top of a fresh pineapple fruit. My attempts at this have always resulted in a putrid, bluish-green moldy disaster.

Oh well, there are probaby better things to be growing in this climate anyway...