Breadfruit

Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) is a species of flowering tree in the mulberry family, Moraceae originating in the South Pacific and that was eventually spread to the rest of Oceania.

Drawing of breadfruit by John Frederick Miller

Quotes

• Boys dream of native girls who bring breadfruit,
  Whatever they are,
  As bribes to teach them how to execute
  Sixteen sexual positions on the sand;
  This makes them join (the boys) the tennis club,
  Jive at the Mecca, use deodorants, and
  On Saturdays squire ex-schoolgirls to the pub
  By private car.

  Such uncorrected visions end in church
  Or registrar:
  A mortgaged semi- with a silver birch;
  Nippers; the widowed mum; having to scheme
  With money; illness; age. So absolute
  Maturity falls, when old men sit and dream
  Of naked native girls who bring breadfruit
  Whatever they are.

  • Philip Larkin, "Breadfruit," in: Neil Powell (1980). Carpenters of Light: Some Contemporary English Poets. p. 100