Dilip Walse Patil

Scientific Name : Musa paradisiaca L.

Category : Angiosperms

Status : Alive

Habit : A large tree-like herb with thick rhizome, pseudostem fleshy, succulent formed by the imbricate leaf sheaths. Leaves : Large, oblong, petioles long channeled, bright glossy green. Inflorescence : Spadix Flowers : Flowers on recurved large, spadix drooping, the lower flowers all female, the upper all male, clustered and enclosed in the axils of large, reddish-purple caduceus, boat-shaped spathes or bracts. Calyx spathaceous, 5-toothed, white, corolla oblong, truncate, toothed, convolute round the stamens and style. Stamens 5 perfect and 1 small rudimentary or 0, filaments long stout, anthers linear, 2-celled. Ovary inferior, 3-celled, style long, stigma lobulate. Fruit : Berry, fleshy, narrow at both ends, seeds rarely present in cultivated variety. Flowering and Fruiting Time : Throughout the year. Significance : The fruits are edible uncooked. Besides the fruits, every part of banana is useful for medicinal uses. The juice of stem is given in leprosy, hysteria, the young leaves are applied as dressing to burns and blisters. The fruit is tonic and laxative. All Hindus, keep several plants at the gates of the marriage mandap as an auspicious sign of fertility and prosperity as so many suckers are produced round about the parent plant so will ne the prolific fertility of the married couple.