Ananas comosus (pineapple, "Painappuru")

Japanese name: パイナップル
Scientific name: Ananas comosus

[Overview]
A perennial native to tropical America, growing to about 1 m tall.
The stem is short with many nodes and is hidden by more than 60 leaves.
The leaves form a rosette; they have no petiole and are sword-shaped, hard and thick. Depending on the cultivar, the leaf margin has spiny serrations.
An erect flower stalk rises from the center of the rosette.
The inflorescence consists of 100–200 flowers, arranged spirally at the tip of the flower stalk.
The flowers are enclosed in hard, sharp bracts and have pale reddish purple petals and sepals, each 3-lobed.
The fruit is a multiple fruit made of berries gathered in a cylindrical shape, and the edible parts are the inflorescence axis, ovaries, receptacle, bract bases and so on.
At the top of the fruit there is a crown bud, formed by the continued growth of the growing point of the flower stalk.

[History]
No wild species have been confirmed and the period of its origin is unknown, but it has been found in Mexico from 200 BC to AD 700.
After the discovery of the New World, it was valued as a source of vitamins during voyages, and because it is drought tolerant and easy to propagate, it spread widely across the tropics.

[Uses]
The fruit is eaten fresh, processed, or used for juice and so on.

[Cultivation]
An annual mean temperature of 20–25 °C is required. It is also widely grown in Okinawa.
Propagate by slips at the base of the fruit, sucker-slips, suckers from the leaf axils, or tuber buds arising from the underground stem.

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