Musa L.

Tutin, T. G., Heywood, V. H., Burges, N. A., Moore, D. M., Valentine, D. H., Walters, S. M. & Webb, D. A., 1980, Flora Europaea. Volume 5. Alismataceae to Orchidaceae (Monocotyledones), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press : 323

1. Musa L. 2

Giant, scapose herbs with monocarpic shoots, but in many species perennatingby suckers. Stock a subglobose, underground tuber. Leaves basal; sheaths very long, fibrous, persistent, tubular but with free margins, each wrapped around the younger

sheaths so as to form a rigid, erect false stem; lamina oblong, obtuse, splitting very readily at right angles to the midrib. Scape slender, enclosed in the cavity of the false stem and emerging from between the youngest leaves. Inflorescence a long spike, often pendent; flowers in whorls, each whorl in the axil of a large bract. Flowers of basal whorls female, those of middle and distal whorls male; some hermaphrodite flowers sometimes present between the two. Staminodes present in female flowers and abortive gynoecium in male. Perianth with 5 segments connate to form a shortly 5-lobed tube open along the adaxial side; the sixth segment (adaxial) shorter, free. Stigma shortly 3-lobed. Fruitan elongate berry; seeds (in wild species) numerous.

Literature: N. W. Simmonds, The Evolution of the Bananas. London. 1962. Bananas, ed. 2. London. 1966.