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BANANAS

Specialty Definition: Banana

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

For other meanings, see: Banana, Australia

A banana is a plant of the genus Musa in the family Musaceae, closely related to plantain. The term banana is also applied to the elongated fruit (technically a false berry), which grows (in edible species and varieties) in hanging clusters, several to many fruits to a tier (called a hand), many tiers to a bunch. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors. The fruit is easily peeled and eaten raw or cooked. It is a rich source of potassium, and hence is highly recommended for patients suffering from high blood pressure. Depending upon variety and ripeness, the flesh can be starchy to sweet, and firm to mushy. Plantains are used in cooking and are the staple starch of some tropical populations.

Banana chips are produced from bananas.

A hand of bananas of the
type sold to people to eat

The commercial sweet varieties most commonly eaten in temperate countries (species Musa acuminata or the hybrid Musa x paradisiaca, a cultigen) are imported in large quantities from the tropics, where they are popular in part because they are available fresh year-round. While the original bananas contained rather large seeds, seedless and triploid varieties have been selected for human consumption. These are propagated asexually from offshoots of the plant.

Banana Extinction

In 2003 Belgian plant pathologist Emile Frison of the International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain stated that the dominant commercial banana variety Cavendish may become extinct within 10 years. The limited genetic diversity of cultivated bananas (which is due to their asexual reproduction) make them vulnerable to diseases such as black Sigatoka (or a new strain of Fusarium wilt, also known as Panama disease). The magazine New Scientist added, "We may see the extinction of the banana, currently a lifesaver for hungry and impoverished Africans and the most popular product on the world's supermarket shelves." However, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, Cavendish bananas make up about 10% of the total world banana crop, with small-scale farmers continuing to grow numerous other varieties. The predecessor to the Cavendish, the Gros Michel, had suffered a similar fate.

Urban legend

It is an urban legend that the dried skin of banana fruit is hallucinogenic when smoked. Unlike many urban legends, the origin of this one has been traced. It dates back to an article in the student newspaper Berkeley Barb in March 1967, which got the story from the singer Country Joe. Even the FDA investigated. In the 1940s and 1950s, an urban legend about bananas involved tarantulas arriving in the neighborhood hidden among the hands of the banana bunch.

External links

• Banana by Julia Morton, Fruits of Warm Climates, pp. 29–46.
• Further details from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

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Food  |  List of fruits  |  List of vegetables

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Banana."

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BANANA

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything, or sometimes Anyone) is an acronym used to describe the opposition of certain groups to some types of development.

The opponents are often environmentalists, in which case the argument is generally that we don't need more of what is being planned (so in the case of a power plant, the opposition would be that we need to use power more wisely, not generate more).

Another form of opposition is from people with an attachment to a particular area (but not necessary living there) which is under threat. Much of the opposition to development in rural areas falls in this category; campaigners are not necessarily opposed to all possible development, just that which they feel will corrupt a particular set of locations (such as pristine wilderness).

Compare with the much better known acronym NIMBY, which describes situations where development "in my backyard" are protested against without questioning the overall necessity of the development.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "BANANA."

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Musaceae

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Bananas
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae Division: Magnoliophyta Class: Liliopsida Order: Zingiberales Family: Musaceae
Genera
Musa Musella Ensete Families of Flowering Plants as of 2002-11-28

Recent comparative studies of plastid and nuclear gene sequences coupled with the application of cladistics is providing a new, somewhat controversial, ordinal classification of flowering plants. However, the Zingiberales have been only slightly affected by such studies.

Superorder Zingiberanae

Order Zingiberales

Family Musaceae, Strelitziaceae, Lowiaceae, Heliconiaceae, Costaceae, Zingiberaceae, Cannaceae, Marantaceae

The Musaceae contains three genera:

Ensete

Musa

Musella

The genus Musa was first described by the pre-Linnean Rumphius but was formally established in the first edition of Linnaeus' Species Plantarum in 1753 the publication that marks the boundary between pre-Linnean and post-Linnean literature. When he wrote Species Plantarum Linnaeus was familiar with only one type of banana but he had had the opportunity of seeing it first hand, growing under glass in the garden of Mr George Cliffort near Haarlem in Holland. The "type" species of the genus, Musa paradisiaca L. was based on Musa Cliffortiana L. which, being published in 1736, is technically a "pre-Linnean" Linnean name. Musa paradisiaca is not actually a species at all but a hybrid known today as Musa (AAB group) 'French' plantain. That Linnaeus chose wrongly to give a species name to a complex hybrid was the foundation for much confusion in the taxonomy of the genus that was not resolved until the 1940s and 1950s.

Until 1862 Musa was the only genus in the family. In 1862, Horaninow described Ensete but the genus did not receive widespread recognition until revived by Cheesman in 1947. The situation of Musella remains somewhat controversial. Musella lasiocarpa has been round the taxonomic block, being placed first in Musa and then in Ensete and back to Musa before eventually it's monotypic status was recognised, at least by some, around 1978.

External links and references

• David Constantine - The Musaceae - http://www.users.globanet.co.uk/~drc

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Musaceae."

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