''Musa'' is one of two or three
genera in the family
Musaceae. The genus includes flowering plants producing edible
bananas and
plantain
Plantain may refer to:
Plants and fruits
* Cooking banana, banana cultivars in the genus ''Musa'' whose fruits are generally used in cooking
** True plantains, a group of cultivars of the genus ''Musa''
* ''Plantaginaceae'', a family of flowerin ...
s. Around 70
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
of ''Musa'' are known, with a broad variety of uses.
Though they grow as high as
tree
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...
s, banana and plantain plants are not
wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...
y and their apparent "
stem" is made up of the bases of the huge
leaf
A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, ste ...
stalks. Thus, they are technically gigantic
herbaceous plant
Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials.
Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous"
The fourth edition of t ...
s.
''Musa'' species are used as food plants by the
larva
A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle.
...
e of some
Lepidoptera
Lepidoptera ( ) is an order (biology), order of insects that includes butterfly, butterflies and moths (both are called lepidopterans). About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera are described, in 126 Family (biology), families and 46 Taxonomic r ...
species, including the
giant leopard moth
The giant leopard moth (''Hypercompe scribonia'') is a moth of the family Erebidae. They are distributed through North America from southern Ontario, and southern and eastern United States through New England, Mexico and south to Colombia. The ...
and other ''
Hypercompe
''Hypercompe'' is a genus of tiger moths in the family Erebidae erected by Jacob Hübner in 1819.
Taxonomy
Several species were formerly separated in ''Ecpantheria'', which is now regarded as a junior synonym.
Species
The genus includes th ...
'' species, including ''
H. albescens'' (only recorded on ''Musa''), ''
H. eridanus'', and ''
H. icasia''.
Description
Banana plants represent some of the largest herbaceous plants existing in the present, with some reaching up to in height (59 feet (18 meters) in the case of ''
Musa ingens''). The large herb is composed of a modified underground stem (rhizome), a false trunk of tightly rolled
petioles, a network of roots, and a large flower spike. The false trunk is an aggregation of the basal portion of leaf sheathes; it is not until the plant is ready to flower that a true stem grows up through the sheath and droops back down towards the ground. At the end of this stem grows a
peduncle (In the case of
Musa ingens, being the second longest peduncle known, exceeded only by
Agave salmiana with many female flowers protected by large purple-red bracts. The extension of the stem (this part called the rachis) continues growth downward where terminal male flowers grows. The leaves originate from a pseudostem and unroll to show a leaf blade with two lamina halves. The lamina can be as much as 22 feet (seven meters) in length in the case of ''
Musa truncata'' of the
Malay Peninsula). ''Musa'' reproduces by both sexual (seed) and asexual (suckers) processes, utilizing asexual means when producing sterile (non-seedy) fruits. Further qualities to distinguish ''Musa'' include spirally arranged leaves, fruits as berries, latex-producing cells present, Flowers with 5 connate tepals and 1 member of the inner whorl distinct, and petiole with one row of air channels.
Systematics and taxonomy
History
The genus ''Musa'' was first named by
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
in 1753.
[ The name is a Latinization of the Arabic name for the fruit, ''mauz'' (موز). ''Mauz'' meaning ''Musa'' is discussed in the 11th-century Arabic encyclopedia '']The Canon of Medicine
''The Canon of Medicine'' ( ar, القانون في الطب, italic=yes ''al-Qānūn fī al-Ṭibb''; fa, قانون در طب, italic=yes, ''Qanun-e dâr Tâb'') is an encyclopedia of medicine in five books compiled by Persian physician-phi ...
'', which was translated to Latin in medieval times and well known in Europe.[ ''Muz'' is also the Turkish, Persian, and Somali name for the fruit. Some sources assert that ''Musa'' is named for ]Antonius Musa
Antonius Musa (Greek ) was a Greek botanist and the Roman Emperor Augustus's physician; Antonius was a freedman who received freeborn status along with other honours. In the year 23 BC, when Augustus was seriously ill, Musa cured the illness wi ...
, physician to the Emperor Augustus
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...
.[ According to Roger Blench, the ultimate origin of ''musa'' is in the ]Trans–New Guinea languages
Trans–New Guinea (TNG) is an extensive family of Papuan languages spoken on the island of New Guinea and neighboring islands ‒ corresponding to the country Papua New Guinea as well as parts of Indonesia.
Trans–New Guinea is the third-la ...
, whence they were borrowed into the Austronesian languages and across Asia, via the Dravidian languages
The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant ...
of India, into Persian, Greek and Arabic as a ''Wanderwort
A (, 'migrant word', plural ; capitalized like all German nouns) is a word that has spread as a loanword among numerous languages and cultures, especially those that are far away from one another, usually in connection with trade. As such, are ...
'':
:
The word "banana" came to English from Spanish and Portuguese, which in turn apparently obtained it from a West African language (possibly Wolof
Wolof or Wollof may refer to:
* Wolof people, an ethnic group found in Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania
* Wolof language, a language spoken in Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania
* The Wolof or Jolof Empire, a medieval West African successor of the Mal ...
).
From the time of Linnaeus until the 1940s, different types of edible bananas and plantain
Plantain may refer to:
Plants and fruits
* Cooking banana, banana cultivars in the genus ''Musa'' whose fruits are generally used in cooking
** True plantains, a group of cultivars of the genus ''Musa''
* ''Plantaginaceae'', a family of flowerin ...
s were given Linnaean binomial names, such as ''Musa cavendishii'', as if they were species. In fact, edible bananas have an extremely complicated origin involving hybridization, mutation
In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA replication, DNA or viral repl ...
, and finally selection
Selection may refer to:
Science
* Selection (biology), also called natural selection, selection in evolution
** Sex selection, in genetics
** Mate selection, in mating
** Sexual selection in humans, in human sexuality
** Human mating strateg ...
by humans. Most edible bananas are seedless (parthenocarpic
In botany and horticulture, parthenocarpy is the natural or artificially induced production of fruit without fertilisation of ovules, which makes the fruit seedless. Stenospermocarpy may also produce apparently seedless fruit, but the seeds are ac ...
), hence sterile, so they are propagated vegetatively. The giving of species names to what are actually very complex, largely asexual, hybrids (mostly of two species of wild bananas, ''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 from this species, although some are hybrids with ''Mus ...
'' and ''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 t ...
'') led to endless confusion in banana botany
Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...
. In the 1940s and 1950s, it became clear to botanists that the cultivated bananas and plantains could not usefully be assigned Linnean binomials, but were better given cultivar
A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture, ...
names.
Sections
''Musa'' sectional systematics possesses a history dating back to 1887. In that year, M.P. Sagot published "Sur Le Genre Bananier", where the genus ''Musa'' was first formally classified. In this article, Sagot grouped the ''Musa'' species into three groups, although no section names were assigned to them. The grouping was based on morphological traits, establishing the trio as:
# Bananas with fleshy fruit;
# Ornamental bananas with upright inflorescences and bracts that were vibrantly colored; and
# Bananas that were giant in size.
In 1893, five years after Sagot's article, J.G. Baker made the first formal designation of ''Musa'' sections. To do so, he named three subgenera which almost paralleled the sections that had been described by Sagot. These sections were:
# ''M''. subg. ''Physocaulis'' Baker: a group defined by a bract with many flowers, inedible fruits, and a bottle-shaped stem.
# ''M.'' subg. ''Rhodochlamys'' Baker: brightly-colored bracts with few flowers, usually inedible fruits, and cylindrical stems.
# ''M.'' subg. ''Eumusa'' Baker which possessed green, brown, or dull-violet bracts with many flowers, usually edible fruits, and cylindrical stems.
After this classification, 50 years passed without revision to the banana sections. In 1947, Cheeseman reclassified the taxon based on morphological features and chromosome number. This project proposed 4 sections:
# ''M''. sect. ''Eumusa'' Cheesman (2n = 2x = 22)
# ''M''. sect. ''Rhodochlamys'' (Baker) Cheesman (2n = 2x = 22)
# ''M''. sect. ''Australimusa'' Cheesman (2n = 2x = 20)
# ''M.'' sect. ''Callimusa'' Cheesman (2n = 2x = 20)
The addition of another ''Musa'' section came in 1976 in G.C.G. Ardent's "The wild bananas of Papua New Guinea". The added section, ''M''. sect. ''Ingentimusa'' Ardent, was based on a single species, ''Musa ingens''. This designation put the number of sections in ''Musa'' at five: ''Eumusa'', ''Rhodochlamys'', ''Callimusa'', ''Australimusa'', and ''Ingentimusa''.
In the 21st century, genomics have become cheaper, more efficient, and more accurate, and ''Musa'' genetic research has increased exponentially. Research was conducted around a diversity of genomic markers (cpDNA, nrDNA, rDNA, introns, various spacers, etc.). The results of many of these studies suggested that the five sections of ''Musa'' defined by morphology (and listed above) were not monophyletic.[Häkkinen, Markku. "Reappraisal of Sectional Taxonomy in Musa (Musaceae)." Taxon, vol. 62, no. 4, 2013, pp. 809–813., doi:10.12705/624.3.]
Based on the incorrect section grouping, Markku Häkkinen proposed another reclassification of the ''Musa'' sections in 2013. Using a multitude of genetic evidence and markers from other studies, Häkkinen suggested the reduction of five ''Musa'' sections into two: ''Musa'' and ''Callimusa''. Unlike sectional classifications of the past, this hypothesis was based on genetic markers rather than morphological features or chromosome number. The two groups were generally formed by the clustering of the previously defined groups:
*''Musa'' sect. ''Rhotochlamys'' and ''M''. sect. ''Eumusa'' became ''M.'' sect. ''Musa''
*''M''. sect. ''Ingetimusa'', ''M''. sect. ''Callimusa'' and ''M''. sect. ''Australimusa'' became ''M''. sect. ''Callimusa''
The advance of genomic analysis technologies and further data on the relatedness of ''Musa'' species, formulated Häkkinen's two sections and later corroborated them as correct subcategories for the genus. The history of ''Musa'' sections provides an example of genomics superseding morphological evidence and thus classifications.
Species
The World Checklist of Selected Plant Families
The World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (usually abbreviated to WCSP) is an "international collaborative programme that provides the latest peer reviewed and published opinions on the accepted scientific names and synonyms of selected pla ...
accepts 68 species and two primary hybrids, , which are listed below.[ The assignment to sections is based on GRIN (where this gives the species),][ regrouped according to Wong et al.][
]
Section ''Callimusa'' (incorporating ''Australimusa'')
and indicate known placement in the former sections ''Australimusa'' and ''Callimusa'', respectively.[
* ''M.'' × ''alinsanaya'' R.V.Valmayor * ''M. azizii'' Häkkinen
* ''M. barioensis'' Häkkinen
* ''M. bauensis'' Häkkinen & Meekiong !-- Systematics and Biodiversity 2 (2): 169-173 -->
* ''M. beccarii'' N.W.Simmonds ref group=Note name=Note2/>
* ''M. boman'' Argent * ''M. borneensis'' ]Becc.
Odoardo Beccari (16 November 1843 – 25 October 1920) was an Italian botanist famous for his discoveries in Indonesia, particularly New Guinea, and Australia. He has been called the greatest botanist to ever study Malesia. His author abbrevi ...
* ''M. bukensis'' Argent
*'' M. velutina''
* ''M. campestris'' Becc. * ''M. coccinea'' Andrews – scarlet banana
* ''M. exotica'' R.V.Valmayor * ''M. fitzalanii'' F.Muell. – extinct
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
* ''M. gracilis'' Holttum * ''M. hirta'' Becc. * ''M. insularimontana'' Hayata * ''M. jackeyi'' W.Hill * ''M. johnsii'' Argent * ''M. lawitiensis'' Nasution & Supard. * ''M. lokok'' Geri & Ng
* ''M. lolodensis'' Cheesman * ''M. maclayi'' F.Muell. ex Mikl.-Maclay * ''M. monticola'' M.Hotta ex Argent * ''M. muluensis'' M.Hotta * ''M. paracoccinea'' A.Z.Liu & D.Z.Li * ''M. peekelii'' Lauterb. * ''M. salaccensis'' Zoll. ex Backer * ''M. textilis'' Née – Abacá
* ''M.'' × ''troglodytarum'' L. – the cultivated Fe'i bananas
* ''M. tuberculata'' M.Hotta * ''M. violascens'' Ridl. * ''M. viridis'' R.V.Valmayor et al.
* ''M. voonii'' Häkkinen
Section ''Ingentimusa''
* ''M. ingens'' N.W.Simmonds
Section ''Musa'' (incorporating ''Rhodochlamys'')
* ''M. acuminata'' Colla – wild seeded banana, one of the two main ancestors of modern edible banana cultivars
** ''M. acuminata'' subsp. ''zebrina'' ''M. sumatrana''/small> – blood banana
* ''M. aurantiaca'' G.Mann ex Baker
* ''M. balbisiana'' Colla – wild seeded banana, one of the two main ancestors of modern edible banana cultivars
* ''M. banksii'' F.Muell.
* ''M. basjoo'' Siebold & Zucc. ex Iinuma – Japanese fiber banana, hardy banana[
* ''M. cheesmanii'' N.W.Simmonds
* ''M. chunii'' Häkkinen
* ''M. griersonii'' Noltie
* ''M. itinerans'' Cheesman
* ''M. laterita'' Cheesman
* ''M. mannii'' H.Wendl. ex Baker
* ''M. nagensium'' Prain
* ''M. ochracea'' K.Sheph.
* ''M. ornata'' Roxb.
* ''Musa'' × ''paradisiaca'' L. = ''M. acuminata'' × ''M. balbisiana'' – many of the cultivated edible bananas
* ''M. rosea'' Baker
* ''M. rubinea'' Häkkinen & C.H.Teo
* ''M. rubra'' Wall. ex Kurz
* ''M. sanguinea'' Hook.f.
* ''M. schizocarpa'' N.W.Simmonds
* ''M. siamensis'' Häkkinen & Rich.H.Wallace
* ''M. sikkimensis'' Kurz
* ''M. thomsonii'' (King ex Baker) A.M.Cowan & Cowan
* ''M. truncata'' Ridl.
* ''M. velutina'' H.Wendl. & Drude – pink banana
* ''M. yunnanensis'' Häkkinen & H.Wang – Yunnan banana, wild forest banana
* ''M. zaifui'' Häkkinen & H.Wang
]
Section undetermined or unknown
* ''M. arfakiana'' Argent
* ''M. arunachalensis'' A.Joe, Sreejith & M.Sabu
* ''M. celebica'' Warb. ex K.Schum.
* ''M. juwiniana'' Meekiong
* ''M. kattuvazhana'' K.C.Jacob
* ''M. lanceolata'' Warb. ex K.Schum.
* ''M. lutea'' R.V.Valmayor et al.
* ''M. sakaiana'' Meekiong et al.
* ''M. shankarii'' Subba Rao & Kumari
* ''M. splendida'' A.Chev.
* ''M. tonkinensis'' R.V.Valmayor et al.
* ''M. yamiensis'' C.L.Yeh & J.H.Chen
Formerly placed here
*'' Ensete davyae'' (Stapf) Cheesman (as ''M. davyae'' Stapf)
*''Ensete gilletii
''Ensete'' is a genus of monocarpic flowering plants native to tropical regions of Africa and Asia. It is one of the three genera in the banana family, Musaceae, and includes the false banana or enset ('' E. ventricosum''), an economically im ...
'' (De Wild.) Cheesman (as ''M. gilletii'' De Wild. or ''M. martretiana'' A.Chev.)
*''Ensete glaucum
''Ensete glaucum'', the snow banana, has also been classified as ''Musa nepalensis'', ''Ensete giganteum'', or ''Ensete wilsonii''.
Distribution
This gigantic monocarpic herbaceous plant is native to China, Nepal, India, Myanmar (Burma), and Th ...
'' (Roxb.) Cheesman (as ''M. glauca'' Roxb.)
*''Ensete lasiocarpum
''Musella lasiocarpa'' ( syn. ''Musa lasiocarpa''), commonly known as Chinese dwarf banana, golden lotus banana or Chinese yellow banana, is the sole species in the genus ''Musella''. It is thus a close relative of bananas, and also a member of ...
'' (Franch.) Cheesman (as ''M. lasiocarpa'' Franch.) – also placed in a separate genus as ''Musella lasiocarpa'' (Franch.) C.Y.Wu ex H.W.Li[
*'' Ensete livingstoniana'' (J. Kirk) Cheesman (as ''M. livingstoniana'' J.Kirk)
*'']Ensete perrieri
''Ensete'' is a genus of monocarpic flowering plants native to tropical regions of Africa and Asia. It is one of the three genera in the banana family, Musaceae, and includes the false banana or enset ('' E. ventricosum''), an economically im ...
'' (Stapf) Cheesman (as ''M. perrieri'' Claverie)
*''Ensete superbum
''Ensete superbum'' is a species of banana from India.
Distribution
The plant is well-known from the Western Ghats, Anaimalai Hills, some other South Indian hills in Dindigul and other parts of the peninsular India. It has also been recorded ...
'' (Roxb.) Cheesman (as ''M. superba'' Roxb.)
*''Ensete ventricosum
''Ensete ventricosum'', commonly known as enset or ensete, Ethiopian banana, Abyssinian banana, pseudo-banana, false banana and wild banana,
is an herbaceous species of flowering plant in the banana family Musaceae. The domesticated form of ...
'' (Welw.) Cheesman (as ''M. arnoldiana'' De Wild., ''M. ensete'' J.F.Gmel. or ''M. ventricosum'' (Welw.) Cheesman)
*''Heliconia bihai
''Heliconia bihai'' (red palulu) of the family Heliconiaceae is an erect herb typically growing taller than 1.5 m. It is native to northern South America and the West Indies. It is especially common in northern Brazil and the Guianas but also fo ...
'' (L.) L. (as ''M. bihai'' L.)
Cultivated bananas
A number of distinct groups of plants bearing edible fruit have been developed from species of ''Musa''. In English, fruits which are sweet and used for dessert are usually called "bananas", whereas starchier varieties used for cooking are called "plantains", but these terms do not have any botanical significance. By far the largest and now the most widely distributed group of cultivated bananas is derived from section ''Musa'', particularly and , either alone or in various hybrid combinations. The next but much smaller group is derived from members of section ''Callimusa'' (previously classified as ''Australimusa'') and is restricted in importance to Polynesia
Polynesia () "many" and νῆσος () "island"), to, Polinisia; mi, Porinihia; haw, Polenekia; fj, Polinisia; sm, Polenisia; rar, Porinetia; ty, Pōrīnetia; tvl, Polenisia; tkl, Polenihia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of ...
. Of even more restricted importance are small groups of hybrids from Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
; a group from section ''Musa'' to which '' Musa schizocarpa'' has also contributed, and a group of hybrids between section ''Musa'' and section ''Callimusa''.
Banana and plantains are the fourth most produced food globally surpassed only by the staple crops of rice
Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima
''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...
, wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
and maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
.
Properties
Plants of the ''Musa'' spp. including roots, flowers and fruits have been used in the folk medicine
Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous medicine or folk medicine) comprises medical aspects of traditional knowledge that developed over generations within the folk beliefs of various societies, including indigenous peoples, before the ...
cultures of Africa, Asia, India and the Americas. Modern studies examining the properties of the fruits have found diversity of bioactive compounds among genotypes
The genotype of an organism is its complete set of genetic material. Genotype can also be used to refer to the alleles or variants an individual carries in a particular gene or genetic location. The number of alleles an individual can have in a ...
compared with commercially grown cultivars
A cultivar is a type of Horticulture, cultivated plant that people have selected for desired phenotypic trait, traits and when Plant propagation, propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and st ...
.
Section ''Musa'' cultivars
When the Linnaean binomial system was abandoned for cultivated bananas, an alternate genome-based system for the nomenclature of edible bananas in section ''Musa'' was devised. Thus, the plant previously known by the "species" name ''Musa cavendishii'' became ''Musa'' (AAA Group) 'Dwarf Cavendish'. The "new" name shows clearly that 'Dwarf Cavendish' is a triploid, with three sets of chromosomes, all derived from ''Musa acuminata'', which is designated by the letter "A". When ''Musa balbisiana'' is involved, the letter "B" is used to denote its genome. Thus, the cultivar 'Rajapuri' may be called ''Musa'' (AAB Group) 'Rajapuri'. 'Rajapuri' is also a triploid, expected to have two sets of chromosomes from ''Musa acuminata'' and one from ''Musa balbisiana''. In the genome of edible bananas from section ''Musa'', combinations such as AA, BB, ABB, BBB and even AAAB can be found.
Fe'i-type cultivars
No such nomenclature system has been developed for the group of edible bananas derived from section ''Callimusa''. This group is known generally as the "Fe'i" or "Fehi" bananas, and numerous cultivars are found in the South Pacific region. They are very distinctive plants with upright fruit bunches, featuring in three of Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...
's paintings. The flesh can be cooked before eating and is bright orange, with a high level of beta carotene
Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; grc, βῆτα, bē̂ta or ell, βήτα, víta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labio ...
. Fe'i bananas are no longer very important for food, as imported foods have grown in popularity, although some have ritual significance. Investigations are under way to use the Fe'i karat banana
Karat bananas are local cultivars of Fe'i banana found in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia. The name originates from their bright orange flesh, unusually rich in β-carotene.
They are often treated as a single cultivar, i.e. a distinct cul ...
s (the name derives from " carrot" due to the intense orange-yellow color of the fruit) in prevention of childhood blindness in Pohnpei
Pohnpei "upon (''pohn'') a stone altar (''pei'')" (formerly known as Ponape or Ascension, Proto-Chuukic-Pohnpeic: ''*Fawo ni pei)'' is an island of the Senyavin Islands which are part of the larger Caroline Islands group. It belongs to Pohnpei ...
.[ Fe'i bananas probably derive mainly from '']Musa maclayi
''Musa maclayi'' is a species of seeded banana native to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. It is placed in section ''Callimusa'' (now including the former section ''Australimusa''). It is regarded as one of the progenitors of the Fe'i ba ...
'', although their origins are not as well understood as the section ''Musa'' bananas. Cultivars can be formally named, as e.g. ''Musa'' (Fe'i Group) 'Utafun'.
Other uses
In addition to the edible fruits, the flowers can be eaten cooked, and the heart of the plant (like heart of palm
Heart of palm is a vegetable harvested from the inner core and growing bud of certain palm trees, most notably the coconut (''Cocos nucifera''), juçara ('' Euterpe edulis''), açaí palm (''Euterpe oleracea''), palmetto (''Sabal'' spp.), and p ...
) can be eaten raw or cooked. Additionally, the rootstocks and leaf sheaths of some species can be cooked and eaten.
See also
*''Ensete
''Ensete'' is a genus of monocarpic flowering plants native to tropical regions of Africa and Asia. It is one of the three genera in the banana family, Musaceae, and includes the false banana or enset ('' E. ventricosum''), an economically impor ...
'' (false bananas); for more information about ''Musella'', also see ''Musella lasiocarpa
''Musella lasiocarpa'' ( syn. ''Musa lasiocarpa''), commonly known as Chinese dwarf banana, golden lotus banana or Chinese yellow banana, is the sole species in the genus ''Musella''. It is thus a close relative of bananas, and also a member of ...
''
*True plantains
"True" plantains are a group of cultivars of the genus ''Musa'' ( bananas and plantains) placed in the African Plantain subgroup of the AAB chromsome group. Although "AAB" and "true plantain" are often used interchangeably, plantains are just t ...
Notes
References
Further reading
* Hedrick, U.P. (ed.) (1919):
Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World
'. J.B. Lyon Co., Albany.
* Nelson, S.C.; Ploetz, R.C. & Kepler, A.K. (2006)
''Musa'' species (banana and plantain)
*
External links
Musapedia, page on Musa wild species
Musapedia, page on Musa sections
Musapedia, page on the diversity of banana cultivars
Musarama, banana image bank
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Musa (Genus)
Zingiberales genera
Musaceae