Bananas
   HOME



picture info

Bananas
A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – berry (botany), botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa (genus), Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing them from dessert bananas. The fruit is variable in size, color and firmness, but is usually elongated and curved, with soft flesh rich in starch covered with a Peel (fruit), peel, which may have a variety of colors when ripe. It grows upward in clusters near the top of the plant. Almost all modern edible seedless (Parthenocarpy, parthenocarp) cultivated bananas come from two wild species – ''Musa acuminata'' and ''Musa balbisiana'', or hybrids of them. ''Musa'' species are native to tropical Indomalaya and Australia (continent), Australia; they were probably Domestication, domesticated in New Guinea. They are grown in 135 countries, primarily for their fruit, and to a lesser extent to make banana paper and textile ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Cavendish Banana
Cavendish bananas are the fruits of one of a number of banana cultivars belonging to the Cavendish subgroup of the List of banana cultivars#AAA Group, AAA banana cultivar group (triploid cultivars of ''Musa acuminata''). The same term is also used to describe the plants on which the bananas grow. They include commercially important cultivars like 'Dwarf Cavendish' (1888) and 'Grand Nain' (the "Chiquita Brands International, Chiquita banana"). Since the 1950s, these cultivars have been the most internationally traded bananas. They replaced the Gros Michel banana after it was devastated by Panama disease. They are unable to Plant reproduction#Sexual reproduction, reproduce sexually, instead being propagated via identical Cloning, clones. Due to this, the genetic diversity of the Cavendish banana is very low. This, combined with the fact the Cavendish is planted in dense chunks in a monoculture without other natural species to serve as a buffer, makes the Cavendish extremely vulnera ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Musa Acuminata
''Musa acuminata'' is a species of banana native to South Asia, Southern Asia, its range comprising the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Many of the modern edible dessert bananas are derived from this species, although some are hybrids with ''Musa balbisiana''. First cultivated by humans around 8000 BCE, it is one of the early examples of List of domesticated plants, domesticated plants. Description ''Musa acuminata'' is botanical terminology, classified by botanists as an herbaceous plant and an evergreen and a perennial, but not as a tree. The trunk (known as the pseudostem) is made of tightly packed layers of leaf sheaths emerging from completely or partially buried corms. The leaves are at the top of the leaf sheaths, or Petiole (botany), petioles and in the subspecies M. a. truncata the blade or Lamina (leaf), lamina is up to in length and wide. The inflorescence grows horizontally or obliquely from the trunk. The individual flowers are white to yellowish-white i ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Cooking Banana
Cooking bananas are a group of banana cultivars in the genus ''Musa (genus), Musa'' whose fruits are generally used in cooking. They are not eaten raw and are generally starchy. Many cooking bananas are referred to as plantains or 'green bananas'. In botanical usage, the term "plantain" is used only for true plantains, while other starchy cultivars used for cooking are called "cooking bananas". True plantains are cooking cultivars belonging to the AAB group, while cooking bananas are any cooking cultivar belonging to the List of banana cultivars, AAB, AAA, ABB, or BBB groups. The currently accepted scientific name for all such cultivars in these groups is Musa × paradisiaca, ''Musa'' × ''paradisiaca''. Fe'i bananas (''Musa'' × ''troglodytarum'') from the Pacific Islands are often eaten roasted or boiled, and are thus informally referred to as "mountain plantains", but they do not belong to any of the species from which all modern banana cultivars are descended. Cooking bananas ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Berry (botany)
In botany, a berry is a fleshy fruit without a drupe, drupe (pit) produced from a single flower containing one Ovary (botany), ovary. Berries so defined include grapes, Ribes, currants, and tomatoes, as well as cucumbers, eggplants (aubergines), persimmons and bananas, but exclude certain fruits that meet the berry, culinary definition of berries, such as strawberries and raspberries. The berry is the most common type of fleshy fruit in which the entire outer layer of the ovary wall ripens into a potentially edible "pericarp". Berries may be formed from one or more gynoecium, carpels from the same flower (i.e. from a simple or a compound ovary). The seeds are usually embedded in the fleshy interior of the ovary, but there are some non-fleshy exceptions, such as ''Capsicum'' species, with air rather than pulp around their seeds. Many berries are edible, but others, such as the Potato fruit, fruits of the potato and the deadly nightshade, are poisonous to humans. A plant that be ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Red Banana
Red bananas are a group of varieties of bananas with reddish-purple skin. Some are smaller and plumper than the common Cavendish banana, others much larger. Ripe, raw red bananas have a flesh that is creamy to light pink. They are also softer and sweeter than the yellow Cavendish varieties, some with a slight tangy raspberry flavor and others with an earthy one. Many red bananas are exported by producers in East Africa, Asia, South America, and the United Arab Emirates. They are a favorite in Central America, but are sold throughout the world. Description Red bananas should have a deep red or maroon rind when ripe and are best eaten when unbruised and slightly soft. This variety contains more beta carotene, beta-carotene and vitamin C than yellow bananas. It also contains potassium and iron. The redder the fruit, the more carotene and the higher the vitamin C level. As with yellow bananas, red bananas will ripen in a few days at room temperature and are best stored outsid ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Banana Chip
A banana chip (sometimes called banana crisp) is a deep-fried or dried, generally crispy slice of banana. It is usually made from firmer, starchier banana varieties (" cooking bananas" or plantains) like the saba and Nendran cultivars. It can be sweet or savory and can be covered with sugar, honey, salt, or various spices. Banana chips are the only processed banana product with significant international trade. The main exporter of banana chips worldwide is the Philippines. Export markets for banana chips are also established in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. Fried Fried banana chips are usually produced from under-ripe banana slices deep-fried in sunflower oil or coconut oil. These chips are dry (like potato chips), contain about 4% water (table), and can be salted, spiced, sugar-coated, or jaggery-coated. Sometimes, banana flavoring is added. If ripe dessert bananas are used, they come out soggy. They are used for desserts, not for dry chips. Dried Some varieties of ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Musa Balbisiana
''Musa balbisiana'', also known simply as plantain, is a wild-type species of banana. It is one of the ancestors of modern cultivated bananas, along with '' Musa acuminata''. Description It grows lush leaves in clumps with a more upright habit than most cultivated bananas. Flowers grow in inflorescences coloured red to maroon. The fruit are between blue and green. They are considered inedible because of the seeds they contain. Taxonomy It was first scientifically described in 1820 by the Italian botanist Luigi Aloysius Colla. Distribution It is native to eastern South Asia, the eastern regions of the Indian subcontinent, northern Southeast Asia, and southern China. Introduced populations exist in the wild, far outside its native range. Uses 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, and ''kluai tani'' (à ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Fe'i Banana
Fe'i bananas (also spelt Fehi or Féi) are cultivated plants in the genus ''Musa (genus), Musa'', used mainly for their fruit. They are very distinct in appearance and origin from the majority of bananas and True plantains, plantains currently grown. Found mainly in the islands of the Pacific, particularly French Polynesia, Fe'i bananas have skins which are brilliant orange to red in colour with yellow or orange flesh inside. They are usually eaten cooked and have been an important food for Pacific Islanders, moving with them as they migrated across the ocean. Most are high in beta-Carotene, ''beta''-carotene (a precursor of vitamin A). The botanical name for Fe'i bananas is ''Musa'' × ''troglodytarum'' L. Precisely which wild species they are descended from is unclear. Description Fe'i bananas are cultivated varieties (cultivars), rather than wild forms. They are distinctly different from the much more common bananas and True plantains, plantains derived from ''Musa acuminata ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Musa (genus)
''Musa'' is one of three Genus, genera in the family Musaceae. The genus includes 83 species of flowering plants producing edible bananas and Cooking banana, plantains, and fiber (abacá), used to make paper and cloth. Though they grow as high as trees, banana and plantain plants are not woody and their apparent "Plant stem, stem" is made up of the bases of the huge leaf Petiole (botany), stalks. Thus, they are technically gigantic herbaceous plants. Description Banana plants are among the largest extant herbaceous plants, some reaching up to in height or in the case of ''Musa ingens''. The large herb is composed of a modified underground stem (rhizome), a false trunk or pseudostem formed by the basal parts of tightly rolled leaves, a network of roots, and a large flower spike. A single leaf is divided into a leaf sheath, a contracted part called a Petiole (botany), petiole, and a terminal leaf blade. The false trunk is an aggregation of leaf sheaths; only when the plant is r ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propagated using the movements of humans and other animals in a symbiotic relationship that is the means for seed dispersal for the one group and nutrition for the other; humans, and many other animals, have become dependent on fruits as a source of food. Consequently, fruits account for a substantial fraction of the world's agricultural output, and some (such as the apple and the pomegranate) have acquired extensive cultural and symbolic meanings. In common language and culinary usage, ''fruit'' normally means the seed-associated fleshy structures (or produce) of plants that typically are sweet (or sour) and edible in the raw state, such as apples, bananas, grapes, lemons, oranges, and strawberries. In botanical usage, the term ''fruit'' als ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Latundan Banana
The Latundan banana (also called Tundan, silk banana, ''Pisang raja sereh'', ''Manzana banana'', or apple banana) is a triploid hybrid banana cultivar of the AAB "Pome" group from the Philippines. It is one of the most common banana cultivars in Southeast Asia and the Philippines, along with Lacatan and Saba bananas. Its Malaysian name is ''pisang rastali''. Description Latundan banana plants typically reach a height of . They require full or partial sun exposure. The flowers are yellow, purple, or ivory in color. The fruits are round-tipped with thin yellow skin that splits once fully ripe. They are smaller than the Lacatan cultivar and the commercially dominant Cavendish bananas. They have a slightly acidic, apple-like flavor. Taxonomy In older classifications, the Latundan cultivar was once the plant referred to as ''Musa sapientum''. It has since been discovered that ''Musa sapientum'' is a hybrid cultivar of the wild seeded bananas ''Musa balbisiana'' and ''Musa ac ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]