BANANA, a gigantic herbaceous plant belonging to the genus Musa (family Musaceae) . It is perennial, sending up from an underground root-stock an apparent stem up to io ft. high, con sisting of the closely-enveloped leaf-sheaths, the corresponding blades, each sometimes i o ft. in length, forming a spreading crown. A true stem develops at the flowering period ; it grows up through the hollow tube formed by the sheaths, emerges above and bears a large number of inconspicuous tubular flowers closely crowded in the axils of large, often brightly-coloured, protecting bracts. The fruits form dense clusters.
The genus Musa contains 3o species, widely distributed through out the tropics of the Old World, and in some cases introduced into the New World. In many parts of the tropics they are as important to the inhabitants as are the grain plants to those living in cooler regions. They are most successfully cultivated in a hot, damp, tropical climate. The unripe fruit is rich in starch, which in ripening changes into sugar. The most generally used fruits are derived from Musa paradisiaca, of which an enormous number of varieties and forms exist in cultivation. The sub-species sapientum (formerly regarded as a distinct species M. sapientum) is the source of the fruit generally known in England as bananas, and eaten raw, while the name plantain is given to forms of the species itself, M. paradisiaca, which require cooking. The species is prob ably a native of India and southern Asia. Other species which are used as fruits are M. acuminate in the Malay Archipelago, M. Fehi in Tahiti, and M. Cavendishii, the so-called Chinese banana, in cooler countries; the fruit of the last-named has a thinner rind and a delicate, fragrant flesh. The species, the fruits of which require cooking, are of much greater importance as an article of food. These often reach a considerable size ; forms are .
known in East Africa which attain nearly 2 ft. in length with the thickness of a man's arm. A form of M. corniculata, from Cochin China and the Malay Archipelago, produces only a single fruit, which, however, affords an adequate meal for three men.
No other class of tropical fruits is so widely known and only the coconut has greater economic value. The banana stands with the apple, grape, olive, orange and lemon among the leading fruits of the world. Various types of bananas are cultivated throughout the Tropics and a few kinds are now planted outside that zone. Since 188o banana culture has greatly expanded in the West Indies, Central America, Mexico and Colombia. The value of bananas shipped from these re gions to the United States and Europe is about $50,000,000 yearly. The domestic value of these fruits within the Tropics of both hemispheres is incalculable.
(See MANILA HEMP ; PLANTAIN.)