2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Banana (Latin Musa) Is not a sprawling tall palm tree, not a fruit tree with clusters of yellow fruits, but just a giant herbaceous perennial plant. The genus of plants with the name "Banana" is one of three genera of the Banana family (Musaceae) and unites in its ranks about seven dozen species that like the climate and soil of Southeast Asia. Although today Bananas grow not only there.
What's in your name
There is no exact origin of the genus names. There are only a few versions referring to the languages of the peoples who were the first to taste delicious and healthy fruits. What these people associated with plants and their fruits, we do not know, and therefore we simply repeat after them in Latin "Musa", and in Russian "Banana". By the way, the pronunciation of "banana" can be heard in many countries of the world, but "Musa" is very close to the name of the fruit in Arabic.
Description
When you see huge and heavy bunches of ripe bananas on the counters of eastern markets, you imagine very strong branches of a powerful tree that can hold such a weight. But nature played a trick on the human imagination by creating Banana as a herb.
She came up with a very interesting way to create a solid "trunk" from the leaves of a plant, masterfully positioning them relative to each other. Each new leaf, born from the sheath of the plant, is provided with strong support for the already existing leaves, carefully embracing the newborn. So, leaf by leaf, up to six 6 meters long and up to 1 meter wide, give birth to a "false stem" called by botanists, the strength of which is not inferior to tree trunks, and the height can reach 15 meters.
Although the trunk, or rather the stem, the Banana has. But it is very short and prefers to hide in the soil, showing only leaves on the surface of the earth. The stem is an intermediary between the aboveground parts of the plant and the root underground part, which is also very powerful, because it has to work hard to turn the herbaceous plant into a kind of tree.
The herbaceous plant can grow enormous due to its powerful roots, year-round summer and its perenniality. It is much more difficult for our tall perennials, such as Burp, Hogshevik, Elecampane, to turn into trees, since in winter we have to take a break in growth.
In favorable conditions, Banana grows very quickly, presenting with its fragrant fruits in 10-11 months. But, before the plant reveals its "multi-storey" fruits to the world, a peduncle rushes to the heavens from the underground stem, protected by the "false stem" from the vicissitudes of fate. The inflorescence crowns the peduncle - a brush consisting of white, purple, or three-colored flowers, located on the peduncle in tiers.
Therefore, the fruits form a multi-tiered banana cluster. Each banana is a multi-seeded berry, which sometimes contains much more seeds than delicate fragrant pulp. But such a picture can be observed in wild-growing bananas. Bananas grown by humans are deprived of seeds for the sake of fleshy pulp, and therefore such plants propagate only vegetatively.
The aboveground part of the Banana, similar to the giant grass Bamboo, dies after fruiting, giving way to young shoots growing from the roots.
Multifunctional plant
The herb Banana plant gives people not only nutritious fruits that replace bread in many countries, but also allows them to use their roots, false stem and leaves for many domestic purposes.
As for the roots of the plant, they are quite edible and were used by people as food where banana fruits were stuffed with seeds so densely that they were not appetizing to eat.
False stem, like reed, is an excellent building material for lightweight fishing rafts and other fishermen's implements. They are used to make furniture, in particular, rugs that replace bulky and hard chairs. The famous "Manila hemp", from which unsinkable marine cables and ropes are made, is a derivative of the Banana false stem.
Banana leaves serve as utensils for food.
Recommended:
Water Banana
Water banana (lat.Nymphoides aquatica) - a plant from the Shift family, owing its unusual name to one interesting feature: near its roots, you can see formations resembling banana bunches. Description The water banana is a plant that can reach a height of twenty-five to thirty-five centimeters and is endowed with plump cord-like adventitious white roots that do not penetrate too deep into the ground.
Banana Granadilla
Banana Granadilla (Passiflora mollissima) - belonging to the family Passionaceous treelike vine. Description Banana granadilla is a climbing plant, more precisely, a tree-like liana, the height of which can easily reach six meters. And the stems of this culture are densely covered with a pleasant yellowish fluff.
Banana Peel Fertilizer
Bananas are eaten today by almost everyone and, absolutely not thinking about the benefits of banana peels, many of us immediately send them to the trash can. And in vain - a banana peel can become a faithful assistant to a summer resident, because excellent fertilizers are obtained from it! At the same time, you can prepare miraculous fertilizers in a variety of ways
A Little More About The Benefits Of Banana Peel
It would seem that you can only slip well on it. But it turns out that banana peel can become an assistant in many household, culinary, cosmetic and even medical matters. How can it be useful?
Fancy Water Banana
The aquatic banana, also called the banana plant, is found primarily in slow-flowing or stagnant water bodies in North America. It can be seen especially often on the Atlantic coast. This plant acquired its unusual name due to one very interesting feature - near its roots you can see formations resembling banana bunches. Water banana looks great in aquariums, giving them a special flavor - it looks especially impressive when in the foreground
