Episode Details

One towering tree has shaped ancient migrations, naval mutinies and cuisines around the world. This episode explores the breadfruit, starting with the Hawaiian myth of the war god Ku, who buried himself to save his family from famine, and moving into the remarkable biology of a false fruit formed from thousands of fused flowers.

We follow Lapita voyagers who cloned seedless breadfruit by wounding roots and carried the suckers across the Pacific, then confront the darker chapter when Joseph Banks promoted the plant as cheap food for enslaved people in the Caribbean, launching William Bligh's ill-fated Bounty voyage. Finally, we look at fermentation pits, global dishes, the tree's many uses and its potential for future food security.

• How a breadfruit forms from 1,500 to 2,000 fused flowers and why its yield is so high
• How ancient Pacific voyagers propagated a seedless plant using root cuttings and suckers
• The colonial economics behind Bligh's Bounty mutiny and his successful second voyage
• Fermented breadfruit pastes that stayed edible for decades, plus dishes from Puerto Rico to Sri Lanka
• Timber, tapa cloth, latex glue and insect-repelling flowers, and Diane Ragone's breadfruit collection