MELLOW YELLOW

THE DELICIOUS BANANA IS AN ANCIENT TROPICAL FRUIT THAT TOOK AROUND 10,000 YEARS TO COLONISE THE WORLD

No matter what you’ve been told, bananas don’t grow on trees. The lush, leafy plants that produce the popular tropical fruit are actually perennial herbs. Wait, there’s more! Botanically speaking, a banana is in fact a berry: a fleshy fruit, without a stone or pit, produced from a single flower containing one ovary. But back to the tree — or, more exactly, the world’s largest herbaceous flowering plant. How does it achieve its upright habit? Layers of leaves emerge from the crown of a rhizome or corm beneath the ground and grow into an upright trunk-like form or pseudostem. As new leaves emerge from the crown, they push up the centre of the existing leaves, adding height to the “tree”. The fruits grow upwards in clusters near the top of the plant. Scientists believe bananas…

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Good Organic Gardening (Digital) - 1 Issue, 15.2

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