Introduction

• Scientific name: Musa paradisica and Musa cavendis.
• Also known as Tree of Paradise; Tree of wisdom and Garden of Eden.
• Banana clump is known as pseudo stem.
• Commercial Bananas belongs to accuminata AAA group.
• Term Plantain belong to cooking banana.
• The inflorescence of Banana is known as cymose.
• The Basal internode is called rachis which gives rise to female flower and the apical internode gives rise to male flower.
• Each series of flowers are called hand and individual is known as fingers.
• It was initially originated in tropical region of Central Asia and South East Asia.

Importance of Banana

• Banana is rich in carbohydrate while vitamin A, B and C are also found.
• Banana fruits are rich source of minerals like magnesium, sodium, potassium and phosphorous and fair source of calcium and iron.
• Bananas are closely related to plantain which is used for cooking purpose to desert purpose of table bananas.
• Leaves use as umbrella, dining plates or as wrapping material.
• Fruits used as dessert, chips, soft drink, flour and powder, jam, confectionary products, etc,
• Cloths and bags can be prepared out of fiber.
• Starch is manufactured from pseudo stem.

Botany of Banana

• It is a non-branching, soft stemmed, large herb of about 2-6metres in height.
• The plants are normally tall and fairly sturdy and are often mistaken for trees, but their main or upright stem is actually a pseudo stem that grows 6 to 7.6 meters (20 to 24.9 ft) tall, growing from a corm.
• Each pseudo stem can produce a single bunch of bananas.
• It has an underground stem (rhizome) from which chord like spongy root emerges
• Leaves are spirally arranged and may grow 2.7 metres (8.9 ft) long and 60 cm (2.0 ft) wide.
• Each pseudo stem normally produces a single inflorescence, also known as the banana heart.
• The banana fruits develop from the banana heart, in a large hanging cluster, made up of tiers (called hands), with up to 20 fruit to a tier.