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|image_caption=Banana plant
|image_caption=Banana plant
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Adaptation Bananas and plantains are today grown in every humid tropical region and constitutes the 4th largest fruit crop of the world. The plant needs 10 - 15 months of frost-free conditions to produce a flower stalk. All but the hardiest varieties stop growing when the temperature drops below 12° C (53° F). Growth of the plant begins to slow down at about 27° C (80° F) and stop entirely when the temperature reaches 38° C (100° F). High temperatures and bright sunlight will also scorch leaves and fruit, although bananas grow best in full sun. Freezing temperatures will kill the foliage. In most areas bananas require wind protection for best appearance and maximum yield. They are also susceptible to being blown over. Bananas, especially dwarf varieties, make good container specimens if given careful attention. The plant will also need periodic repotting as the old plant dies back and new plants develop.
Adaptation Bananas and plantains are today grown in every humid tropical region and constitutes the 4th largest fruit crop of the world. The plant needs 10 - 15 months of frost-free conditions to produce a flower stalk. All but the hardiest varieties stop growing when the temperature drops below 12° C (53° F). Growth of the plant begins to slow down at about 27° C (80° F) and stop entirely when the temperature reaches 38° C (100° F). High temperatures and bright sunlight will also scorch leaves and fruit, although bananas grow best in full sun. Freezing temperatures will kill the foliage. In most areas bananas require wind protection for best appearance and maximum yield. They are also susceptible to being blown over. Bananas, especially dwarf varieties, make good container specimens if given careful attention. The plant will also need periodic repotting as the old plant dies back and new plants develop.
*'''Valery''' - A Cavendish clone resembling the Robusta. Some believe them to be the same. The Dwarf Cavendish is the most widely planted as it is better adapted to a cool climate and is less likely to be blown over.
*'''Valery''' - A Cavendish clone resembling the Robusta. Some believe them to be the same. The Dwarf Cavendish is the most widely planted as it is better adapted to a cool climate and is less likely to be blown over.
*'''Williams''' - The same as Giant Cavendish. Originated from a mutation of Dwarf Cavendish found in Queensland, Australia. A commercial banana grown in many countries that does well in California. 3m - 5m (10' - 16') in height and has a distinctive long, very large bud. The Del Monte is a Williams.
*'''Williams''' - The same as Giant Cavendish. Originated from a mutation of Dwarf Cavendish found in Queensland, Australia. A commercial banana grown in many countries that does well in California. 3m - 5m (10' - 16') in height and has a distinctive long, very large bud. The Del Monte is a Williams.
==Gallery==
==Gallery==
image:bananacorms.jpg|Banana [[corm]]s.
image:bananacorms.jpg|Banana [[corm]]s.
</gallery>
</gallery>
==Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture text==
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Banana, a name applied to certain species of Musa, particularly to those that produce edible fruits, although it is sometimes used for species grown for ornament, as for Musa Ensete. There are three groups of edible bananas: the common banana, eaten raw, Musa sapientum; the plantain, fruits to be cooked, M. paradisiaca; dwarf, with edible fruits, M. Cavendishii. The first two are probably forms of one species, and the botanical nomenclature is confused. Some species produce fiber. Consult Abaca and Musa.
The banana plant is a great perennial herb. It grows 3m (10') to even 9m (30') tall, and produces a bunch of fruit, and the stalk then dies or becomes weak; in the meantime, suckers have arisen from the rootstock to take its place. The peculiar flower-bearing of the banana is shown in Fig. 462, which illustrates the tip of a flower-cluster. This cluster may be likened to a giant elongating bud, with large, tightly overlapping scales or bracts. Three of these bracts are shown at a a a. in different stages of the flowering. As they rise or open, the flowers below them expand. The bracts soon fall. The flowers soon shed their envelopes, but the styles, 6, persist for a time. The ovaries soon swell into bananas, c. The bracts are royal purple and showy.
The banana has come to be one of the most popular fruits in North America, due to the cheapness of its cultivation and transportation, ease of handling, long- keeping qualities, and adaptability to many uses. The source of supply is mostly Jamaica, Costa Rica, Cuba, Honduras, and latterly the northern shores of Colombia. In the tropics, the ordinary bananas are cooked and used as a vegetable rather more than as a fruit to be eaten from the hand. The plantains, which are coarser and harder fruits and thicker, are always cooked. A form of cooking banana used in parts of tropical America is shown in Fig. 463. Of the banana itself there are many varieties. The common large fruit in northern markets is the Martinique, Jamaica, Gros Michel or Bluefields. A red variety, the Baracoa or Red Jamaica, is sometimes seen. In the tropics, various very small forms are grown for local consumption. These are fragile and do not keep long, and are rarely seen in the markets North. One of them, known as the "fig" in Trinidad, is shown in Fig. 464; the fruits are about 8cm (3") long. The dwarf or Cavendish banana is grown extensively in the Canary Islands, and apparently also in Bermuda; and it is not uncommon as an ornamental plant in conservatories.
It is said that the banana was first imported into the United States in 1804 by Captain John N. Chester of the schooner Reynard, the lot consisting of thirty bunches. The first full cargo is said to have been 1,500 bunches brought to New York in 1830 on the schooner Harriet Smith, chartered by John Pearsall of the firm of J. & T. Pearsall. Two or three cargoes would appear each year, until about 1857 William C. Bliss entered the banana-importing business, securing his supply from Baracoa, Cuba, and taking the trade to Boston. In 1869, he secured a small cargo from Jamaica. In recent years, the Jamaica- United States banana trade has assumed very large proportions.
In the United States, there is little commercial cultivation of bananas, since the frostless zone is narrow and the fruit can be grown so much more cheaply in Central America and the West Indies. Small banana plantations are common in southern Florida, however, and even as far north as Jacksonville. They are also grown in extreme southern Louisiana, and southwestward to the Pacific coast. The plants will endure a slight frost without injury. A frost of five or six degrees will kill the leaves, but if the plants are nearly full grown at the time, new foliage may appear and fruit may form. If the entire top is killed, new suckers will spring up and bear fruit the following year. A stalk, or trunk, bears but once; but the new sprouts which arise from the roots of the same plant continue the fruit-bearing. A strong sprout should bear when twelve to eighteen months old (from two to three years in hothouses).
The plantation will, therefore, continue to bear for many years. A bearing stalk, as grown in southern California, is shown in Fig. 465.
The species mostly in demand for fruiting seldom or never produce seeds, and naturally increase by suckers. The suckers are most readily separated from the parent rootstock by a spade. This is a slow process of increase, but the suckers so produced make large and vigorous plants. A quicker method of propagation is to cut the entire rootstock into small, wedge-shaped pieces, leaving the outer surface of the root about 2.5cm - 5cm (1" - 2") in size, planting in light, moist soil, with the point of the wedge down and the outer surface but slightly covered. The best material for covering these small pieces is fine peat, old leaf-mold, mixed moss and sand, or other light material that is easily kept moist. The beds so planted should be in full open sunshine if in a tropical climate, or given bottom heat and plenty of light if in the plant-house. The small plants from root- cuttings should not be allowed to remain in the original bed longer than is necessary to mature one or two leaves, as that treatment would stunt them.
The textile and ornamental species, also, may be increased by the above process, but as these species usually produce seeds freely, seedlings can be more quickly grown, and with less trouble. The seeds of bananas should be sown as fresh as possible, treating them the same as recommended for root-cuttings. As soon as the seedlings show their first leaves, they should be transplanted into well-prepared beds of rich, moist soil, or potted off and plunged into slight bottom heat, as the needs of the grower or his location may demand. Both seedlings and root-cuttings should have proper transplanting, sufficient room and rich soil, as a rapid, unchecked growth gives the best and quickest results.
In the West Indies, Central America and Mexico, bananas are raised for export to the United States and Canada. The site chosen is usually a level plain in the lowlands, near the coast, or in valleys among the hills, where the rainfall or artificial moisture is sufficient. For distant shipping, bunches of fruit are cut with "machetes" or knives, after they reach their full size and arc almost mature, but quite green in color. Ripening is effected during shipment in warm weather, and by storing in dark, artificially heated rooms during cold weather. Banana flour is a valuable product of ripe bananas prepared among the plantations in the tropics. It is nutritious, and has an increasing demand and use as human food. A recently invented process of drying ripe bananas has been found very successful, and the industry promises to be of vast importance as the marketable article finds ready sale.
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Musa (named after Antonio Musa, physician to Octavius Augustus, first emperor of Rome, 63-14 B. C.). Musaceae. The largest of tree-like herbs, grown for the ornament of their large striking foliage, for fruit, and for fiber.
Bulbous or with perennial rootstocks: lvs. usually gigantic, entire, oblong or elliptic, pinnately parallel veined, arranged in a loose rosette, sometimes dark above and glaucous beneath, with a narrow red edge, usually bright green on both sides; in the young state with narrow hyaline margins beautifully crimsoned or white; midrib with a deep rounded groove above; sheathing petioles long or short, forming a false st. like structure: fls. unisexual, in half-whorl-like clusters in a terminal spike (Fig. 462, Vol. I), each cluster subtended by a large spathe-like, colored bract, and all borne on a long or short often velvety or puberulent rachis emerging from the center of the leafy envelopes at the top of the false st.; lower clusters female, upper male (actually hermaphrodite female and hermaphrodite male, the opposing parts being dwarfed, functionless or sometimes absent); perianth consisting of a calyx at first tubular but soon splitting down one side with a 3-5-toothed apex and opposite the calyx a single simple or 3-toothed petal; stamens normally 6, 5 with 2-celled vasifixed anthers, the sixth usually suppressed; ovary inferior, 3-celled, cells with many superposed ovules: fr. a large berry, short or elongated, pulpy or dry, angular, oblong or cylindrical; seeds when produced are 1/8 – 5/8 . diam., subglobose or angled by pressure, testa hard, indented at the base and apex, albumen mealy, embryo subtruncate.—Sixty-seven species and over 200 cult. varieties are known, native of Trop. Asia, Afr., Austral, and adjacent islands. The fruit of the banana is of great importance in the tropics for food. It is imported in large quantities into the U. S. from W. Indies and Cent. Amer. and grown in the Gulf States (see Banana). Several ornamental species are grown extensively in the N. and are hardy from 38° north to 35° south latitude. Latest publications: Baker, Species and Principal Varieties of Musa, K.B. 229-314 (1894). Schumann, Das Pflanzenreich 45:13-28 (1900). Fawcett, The Banana, Its Cultivation, Distribution and Commercial Uses, 1913. Popenoe, Origin of the Banana, Journal of Heredity 5:273-280 (1914).
When plants of a most gorgeous tropical effect are wanted, they will always be found among the musas. To grow these plants to perfection, a large greenhouse will be required. The musas can be increased from suckers, which are found around old plants, and which can readily be separated from the parent plant with a piece of root. These suckers may be potted up into 4-, 5- or 6-inch pots, using a compost of fibrous loam three parts, well-decayed cow-manure one part, enough sand to keep it open and porous, and a good dash of bone-meal. Pot each sucker firmly. These young plants should be placed in a very close and humid atmosphere so as to encourage quick growth. They prefer a night temperature of not less than 20° C (68° F) with about 5° C-10° C (10° F-20° F) more during the day. These young plants may be started anywhere from the middle of February up to the first of April. When they have filled their pots with roots, they can be shifted into pots two sizes larger. These shifts can be kept up until they are in tubs 60cm (2') square. As the shifts become larger make the compost richer, as they are rank feeders. When musas are grown for decorative purposes, it will be found convenient to have them in tubs as they are more easily moved. When they are wanted to show the production of fine fruit, they should be planted out in the middle of a roomy house where the night temperature does not fall below 65°. During the spring and summer months, let the temperature increase in proportion to the outside conditions, as musas delight in a high temperature. They will stand much feeding and should be given liquid manure once or twice a week during the spring and summer months. By giving care to watering, syringing and ventilation, they will grow rapidly. While musas like plenty of sunshine, they are sometimes better for a slight shading during the middle of the day, but only enough to prevent scorching of the foliage. During the winter the night temperature may be lowered to 60°. They will also require less water and syringing. The musas used for subtropical beds and gardens are grown from seed, such as M. Ensete, M. Basjoo, M. superba, and the like. These seeds may be planted in pans or flats in a compost of loam, leaf-mold and sand in equal parts. The seeds should be covered about four times their size in depth and pressed firmly. These pans should be placed where they can have plenty of bottom-heat. When the seedlings appear, pot them off and grow on the same as above. These plants can be lifted in the fall and the soil shaken off and placed in some house or cellar where the temperature does not go below 45°.
M.assamica, Hort. Bull. Trunk about 1 ½ ft. high: lvs. about 1 ft. long, crowded, running out into a slender tendril-like point, green with a narrow purple border. Assam. This elegant dwarf plant allied to M. sanguinea is well suited for table decoration.—M. imperialis, Sprenger. A magnificent species with perennial root-stock and enormous somewhat lanceolate lvs. Related to M. Ensete. Kamerun. Cult.in Eu. Fla. and fr. not described.—M. Rhodochlamys, Hort. A subgenus of Musa improperly used in some trade catalogues as a species. See species 16-21.
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==See also==
==See also==
== External links ==
== External links ==
* [http://www.bananas.org/ International Banana Society (IBS)]
* [http://www.bananas.org/ International Banana Society (IBS)]
* [http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/banana.html Banana from ''Fruits of Warm Climates'' by Julia Morton]
* [http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/banana.html Banana from ''Fruits of Warm Climates'' by Julia Morton]
* [http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/banana.html Banana Fruit Facts - California Rare Fruit Growers].
* [http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/banana.html Banana Fruit Facts - California Rare Fruit Growers].
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