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Banana plants are among the largest extant herbaceous plants, some reaching up to 9 m (30 ft) in height or 18 m (59 ft) in the case of Musa ingens.The large herb is composed of a modified underground stem (), a false trunk or pseudostem formed by the basal parts of tightly rolled leaves, a network of roots, and a large flower spike.
Most banana cultivars which exhibit purely or mostly Musa acuminata genomes are dessert bananas, while hybrids of M. acuminata and M. balbisiana are mostly cooking bananas or plantains. [23] Musa acuminata is one of the earliest plants to be domesticated by humans for agriculture, 7,000 years ago in New Guinea and Wallacea. [24]
The banana plant is the largest herbaceous flowering plant. [2] All the above-ground parts of a banana plant grow from a structure called a corm. [3] Plants are normally tall and fairly sturdy with a treelike appearance, but what appears to be a trunk is actually a pseudostem composed of multiple leaf-stalks .
It is assumed that wild bananas were cooked and eaten, as farmers would not have developed the cultivated banana otherwise. Seeded Musa balbisiana fruit are called butuhan ('with seeds') in the Philippines, [7] and kluai tani (กล้วยตานี) in Thailand, [8] where its leaves are used for packaging and crafts. [9]
Left to right: plantains, Red, Latundan, and Cavendish bananas The following is a list of banana cultivars and the groups into which they are classified. Almost all modern cultivated varieties of edible bananas and plantains are hybrids and polyploids of two wild, seeded banana species, Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana.
Musaceae is a family of flowering plants composed of three genera with about 91 known species, [3] placed in the order Zingiberales. The family is native to the tropics of Africa and Asia. The plants have a large herbaceous growth habit with leaves with overlapping basal sheaths that form a pseudostem making some members appear to be woody trees.
The above-ground part of the plant is a "false stem" or pseudostem, consisting of leaves and their fused bases. Each pseudostem can produce a single flowering stem. After fruiting, the pseudostem dies, but offshoots may develop from the base of the plant. Cultivars of banana are usually sterile, without seeds or viable pollen. [4]
Musa coccinea, commonly known as scarlet banana [4] or red-flowering banana, [5] is a species of flowering plant in the banana and plantain family Musaceae, native to tropical China (in Guangdong, Guangxi, and southeastern Yunnan) and Vietnam. [4]