Let’s continue with the fruits of the tree and the fruit of the ground. The Gemara asks, “How do you know which one is which?” The Gemara brings the concept of Giz'o Machlif. A tree’s trunk stays the same; the tree remains there its whole life and does not change. But a plant, by definition, has a time when it is alive and a time when it dies. If you have plants that regrow after the winter months, for example, that means some of it stayed. So the Poskim (halachic authorities) say, “No, that’s not what it means.” If the roots stay there, but the plant itself dies and regenerates, that is not still considered a plant. Any fruit that would come from a plant like this is considered Borei Peri Ha'adamah (Creator of earth's produce).
Now, a She'elah (question) came up among the Poskim, the famous She'elah regarding a banana. If you have this banana, it’s a tree, a real tree. It actually looks like a palm tree—smaller, but still a tree. Why would the banana be Borei Peri Ha'adamah? What should the Berakha (blessing) be? To understand that, the Poskim discussed whether the concept of Giz'o Machlif—that the actual trunk changes—applies to branches as well or not. Normally, the way an apple grows, you have the tree, the trunk, and the branches. The branches stay the way they are. Every year, they’re going to give fruits. They don’t die. The branches don’t die during the winter; they just don’t produce. That’s a tree. A plant is the opposite. What about the middle? The tree stays, but the branches that produce the fruit die with the fruits. Then, the next year, another branch grows, and that branch is going to give more fruits. Is that considered like a tree because of Giz'o Machlif? Or do you say the small Geza (trunk) is Machlif, which is the branches themselves? It’s a big discussion, but the Minhag Ha'olam, the consensus of most Poskim, is that when the branch is Machlif, it’s not really about the trunk itself. The trunk would stay there as long as a new branch grows and gives fruits. That would be Borei Peri Ha'adamah, although it’s a full tree.
The best example of that, if you want to understand it better, is the papaya tree. Papaya trees have very thin, strong, strong, strong wood that could hold papayas. The papayas are big. The Pele Atzum (a great wonder) is that every year, when it grows a papaya, one branch gives one papaya. It’s like a long thing that gives one papaya. Once it’s ripe enough, it falls with the branch, and you see a mark on the tree. It’s never going to grow again from there. So you see older trees; they have a lot of marks like this. When I walk on Shabbat, I see all the trees and all the things. One of them is a papaya. That mark it has is from before. It grows and starts growing from the top, always. So the older the tree, the higher the papaya. It grows, it falls. There’s never going to be a branch in that spot.
The banana tree is different, because there are also banana trees nearby. There are two banana trees there. There are two banana trees on the way here. It grows from the same spot, but every time a new branch grows. Every year, a new branch grows. It’s like a big flower. It’s a huge flower, and it gives bananas. But it’s one branch that grows every year. So if the fruit were to fall and, the next year, fruit grew from the same branch, the Berakha would be Borei Peri Ha'etz (Creator of the tree's fruit). But since the whole branch falls apart and a new branch with new fruits grows again, from the same spot or not from the same spot, the Berakha is Borei Peri Ha'adamah.