Banana

The species is used to feed pigs.

Pseudostems clumped, yellow-green, often with large, black markings, ca. 6 m. Petiole 60--75 cm, margin open, ca. 2 cm wide, often closed when young; leaf blade adaxially green and slightly pruinose or not, ovate-oblong, ca. 2.9 m × 90 cm, base auriculate, asymmetric. Inflorescence pendulous, ca. 2.5 m; peduncle and rachis glabrous. Bracts of bisexual and male flowers adaxially purple-red, abaxially brownish purple to yellow-green and pruinose, ovate to lanceolate, persistent, apex obtuse, reflexed after flowering; bracts of female flowers deciduous. Male flowers up to 20 per bract, in 2 rows. Compound tepal adaxially pale purple, abaxially pale purple-white, 4--5 cm, striate, teeth yellow to orange; free tepal milky white, translucent, obovate, ca. 1/2 as long as compound tepal, apex emarginate, shortly mucronate-apiculate. Infructescence pendulous, with ca. 8 clusters (“hands”) each of 15 or 16 berries in 2 rows. Berries gray-green, obovoid, ca. 13 × 4 cm, distinctly angled at maturity, base narrowed into a stalk ca. 2.5 cm, apex contracted or not into a short, angled column ca. 2 cm. Seeds numerous, brown, oblate, 5--10 mm in diam., minutely warty. 2 n = 22.

Tropical Himalaya (Nepal, Sikkim), India, Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia.

Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Xizang, W Yunnan [India, Indonesia (Java), Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Philippines, Sikkim, Sri Lanka, Thailand].

200-600 m

Ravines in evergreen forests; ca. 1100 m.

Musa dechangensis J. L. Liu & M. G. Liu; M. lushanensis J. L. Liu; M. luteola J. L. Liu; M. ( paradisiaca Linnaeus subsp. seminifera (Loureiro) Baker; M. seminifera Loureiro.

Edible bananas and plaintains have a complicated origin involving hybridization, mutation, and selection by humans. Most edible bananas are parthenocarpic (seedless) and, therefore are propagated vegetatively. Prior to 1950, banana varieties were often assigned Linnaean binomial names—M. cavendishii, M. paradisiaca, and M. sapient are common in older botanical literature—as if they were species rather than complex, asexual hybrids; this nomenclature has led to endless confusion in banana botany. More recently, a genome-based system for Musa nomenclature has been used, with the letters A and B to denote the parent stock (M. acuminata and M. balbisiana, respectively), and different numbers of repeating letters to indicate the number of chromosome sets. For example, the plant previously known as the “species” M. cavendishii became Musa (AAA group) “Dwarf Cavendish,” which indicates that it is a triploid, with three sets of chromosomes, all derived from M. acuminata, as designated by the letter "A." The cultivar Rajapuri is written as Musa (AAB group) “Rajapuri,” a triploid with two chromosome sets from M. acuminata and one from M. balbisiana. Modern hybrids include combinations of AA, BB, AAB, ABB, BBB, and even AAAB.

Musa balbisiana is one of two species (along with M. acuminata) that are wild progenitors of the complex hybrids that make up modern bananas and plantains (see page for Musa genus). The cultivated hybrids are tropical monocot tree-like plants grown in wet tropical areas worldwide, and are the fourth most cultivated food crop in the world, with 2009 global production of 97.4 million tons, harvested from 4.9 million hectares. M. balbisiana is native to Southeast Asia, including China, India, Indonesia (Java), Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Philippines, Sikkim, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, where it typically grows in ravines in tropical evergreen forests at altitudes of up to 1,100 meters (3,575 feet). In some of these areas, including parts of New Guinea and Thailand, it may have naturalized following cultivation. It is not clear when the first hybrids were made, but archaeological evidence suggests that bananas have been cultivated for at least 7,000 years. M. balbisiana is used in banana breeding to help convey disease resistance, but other than in hybrid forms, is not widely cultivated itself, because its fruits contain a high proportion of seeds. Like other Musa species, M. balbisiana is not actually a tree, despite its tree-like form. Instead, it is a perennial herbaceous plant with a hard, fibrous “trunk” that is actually as pseudo-stem, composed not of wood, but of overlapping leaf bases. It often grows with several pseudo-stems in a cluster, which may grow to 6 meters (20 feet) or taller and 0.35 meters (1 foot) in diameter. Leaves are up to 3 meters (9 feet) long, smaller than in hybrid forms or in M. acuminata. The primary stem bears a single large terminal inflorescence, a spike with pistillate (female) flowers below, and staminate (male) flowers above. This develops into a bunch of bananas, consisting of 8 clusters of 15 or 16 bananas (technically, berries) arranged in two rows. Hybrids have greatly reduced and usually sterile seeds, but in wild types, seeds occupy up to 25% of the fruit. Bananas and plantains both derive from hybrids of M. balbisiana, but vary in proportion of sugar to starch. See Musa genus for more information on nutrition content and food and medicinal uses. Musa species and hybrids are attacked by numerous pests and pathogens, including weevils, nematodes, and various fungal wilts. Episodic outbursts of different strains of sigatoka wilt have decimated thousands of hectares of plantations in Central and South America. In the 1980s, a new form of wilt destroyed large areas of bananas in southeast Asia, and is once again threatening Central American plantations (see Peed 2011). (Bailey 1976, Facciola 1998, Everett 1981, FAOSTAT 2011, Flora of China 2012, Jenkins 2000, Morton 1987, Peed 2011, Sadik 1988, United Fruit Company 1922, Wiersema and León1999, Wikipedia 2011)

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.