Katie Saum, age 9, of Valparaiso, Ind., for her question:

There are the banana's seeds?

When you peel a banana and slice it, you may see a few little brown seeds. But they are of no use. If you plant them they cannot grow into new banana trees. However, this does not matter at all. There is another way to get new trees started. It so happens that the banana tree has special roots called rhizomes. They spread out just below the surface. When a grower starts a new plantation, he takes cuttings from the rhizomes of old trees. Then he just plants them in the soil.

Each cutting soon sprouts its own rhizomes and sends up a long shoot with a few wide leaves at the top. In about a year, the new banana plant looks like a palm tree. Soon it is ready to grow a long drooping stem, which holds a big cluster of baby bananas. When the bananas are ready to eat, some of them may have a few rows of tiny broom seeds. But they will not be used for growing new banana plants.