BANANA

fruit of the genus Musa, of the family Musaceae, one of the most important food crops of the world. The banana is consumed extensively throughout the tropics, where it is grown, and is also valued in the temperate zone for its flavour, nutritional value, and availability throughout the year. The plant is a gigantic herb that springs from an underground stem, or rhizome, to form a false trunk 36 m (1020 feet) high. This trunk is composed of the basal portions of leaf sheaths and is crowned with a rosette of 10 to 20 oblong to elliptic leaves that sometimes attain a length of 33.5 m (1011.5 feet) and a breadth of 65 cm (26 inches). A large flower spike, carrying numerous yellowish flowers, emerges at the top of the false trunk and bends downward to become bunches of 50 to 150 individual fruits, or fingers. The individual fruits, or bananas, are grouped in clusters, or hands, of 10 to 20. After a plant has fruited it is cut down to the ground, because each plant produces only one bunch of fruit. The dead plant is replaced by others in the form of suckers, or shoots, which arise from the underground stem at roughly six-month intervals. The life of one underground stem thus continues for many years, and the weaker suckers that it sends up through the soil are periodically pruned, while the stronger ones are allowed to grow into fruit-producing plants. There are hundreds of varieties of banana in cultivation; confusion exists because of diverse names applied to one and the same variety in different parts of the world. Perhaps the most important species is the common banana, M. sapientum; this type has several varieties, the most widely consumed of which is the Gros Michel. Consumption of the banana is mentioned in early Greek, Latin, and Arab writings. Alexander the Great saw bananas on an expedition to India. Shortly after the discovery of America, the banana was brought from the Canary Islands to the New World, where it was first established in Hispaniola and soon spread to other islands and the mainland. Cultivation increased until it became a staple foodstuff in many regions, and in the 19th century it began to appear in the markets of the United States. Banana plants thrive naturally on deep, loose, well-drained soils in humid tropical climates, and they are grown successfully under irrigation in such semiarid regions as the southern side of Jamaica. Suckers and divisions of the pseudo-bulb are used as planting material; the first crop ripens within 10 to 15 months, and thereafter fruit production is more or less continuous. Frequent pruning is required to remove surplus growth and prevent crowding in a banana plantation. Desirable commercial bunches of bananas consist of nine hands or more and weigh 2265 kg (49143 pounds). Three hundred or more such bunches may be produced annually on one acre of land. The ripe fruit contains as much as 22 percent of carbohydrate, mainly as sugar, and is high in potassium, low in protein and fat, and a good source of vitamins C and A. A ripe banana is 75 percent water. Though most commonly eaten fresh, bananas may be fried or mashed and chilled in pies or puddings. They may also be used to flavour muffins, cakes, or breads. Cooking varieties, or plantains (M. paradisiaca), differ from other bananas in that the ripe fruit is starchy rather than sweet. They are extensively cultivated and used in tropical regions and are marketed in large urban areas worldwide (see plantain). The United States imports more bananas than any other country; large quantities are also shipped to Great Britain and western Europe. Even for local consumption, bananas are not allowed to fully ripen on the plant. For export, the desired degree of maturity attained before harvest depends upon distance from market and type of transportation. Frequently, ripening is artificially induced after shipment by exposure to ethylene gas. Specially designed refrigerated ships transport bananas from tropical countries to consumption centres in North America and Europe. The chief producers of bananas in Middle America and the West Indies are Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, and Martinique; in South America, Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador; in Africa, Spain's Canary Islands, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Guinea, and Nigeria; and in Asia, Taiwan.