Banana

Banana

Scientific Name: Musa spp.

Local/Bangla name: ‘Kala’

Taxonomic Position According to Cronquist (1988)

Kingdom        :Plantae

Division          :Magnoliophyta

Class               :Liliopsida

Subclass          :Zingiberidae

Order              :Zingiberales

Family             :Musaceae

Genus               : Musa

Photo Source: Abu Ashraf Khan

Identifying Characters of this Family

• Plants are perennial big herb
• venetation
• Infloresce
• Leaf big, parallel
• nce is compound spadix
• Perianth is petaloid
• Ovary is inferior

Botanical Description of the Family

 Habit: Perennial giant herb

Root: Fibrous root system

Figure: Root Anatomy of Banana

Stem: Rhizome, the leaf sheaths attached each other and make a trunk known as pseudostem

Leaf: Simple, alternate, sessile, consist of leaf sheath and leaf blade

Inflorescence: Spadix

Figure: Banana Flower

Flower: Bisexual, sometime unisexual, actinomorphic

Perianth: Tepal six, arranged in two whorls

Androecium: Stamen 6,

Gynoecium: Carpel 3, syncarpous, ovary inferior

Fruit: Berry

Figure: Bunch of banana

Cultivars of Bananas

There are two types of ploidy in bananas namely diploid and triploid in dessert cultivars of bananas. The most important genotypes are AA or AB (diploid) and AAA or AAB (triploid).

Economic Importance

• Used as dessert fruit
• Used as vegetable

Table 1: The most common cultivars are grown in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand

Table 1: Banana varieties developed by Horticultural Research Centre (HRC), BARI