Plantain / Banana

Description:

Musa acuminata is an evergreen perennial, not a tree. The trunk (known as the pseudostem) is made of tightly packed layers of leaf sheaths emerging from completely or partially buried corms. The inflorescence grows horizontally or obliquely from the trunk. The individual flowers are white to yellowish-white in color and are negatively geotropic (that is, growing upwards and away from the ground). Both male and female flowers are present in a single inflorescence. Female flowers located near the base (and develop into fruit), and the male flowers located at the tipmost top-shaped bud in between leathery bracts. The rather slender fruits are berries, the size of each depends on the number of seeds they contain. Each fruit can have 15 to 62 seeds. Each fruit bunch can have an average of 161.76 ± 60.62 fingers with each finger around 2.4 cm (0.94 in) by 9 cm (3.5 in) in size. The seeds of Musa acuminata are around 5 to 6 mm (0.20 to 0.24 in) in diameter. They are subglobose or angular in shape and very hard. The tiny embryo is located at the end of the micropyle. Each seed of Musa acuminata typically produce around four times its size in edible starchy pulp (the parenchyma, the portion of the bananas we eat), around 0.23 cm3 (0.014 cu in). The ratio increases dramatically for the 'seedless' modern edible cultivars. The much reduced in size and sterile seeds are now surrounded by 23 times its size in edible pulp. The seeds themselves are reduced to tiny black specks along the central axis of the fruit.

Habitat:

Musa acuminata is a species of wild banana native to Southeast Asia. Musa acuminata is native to the biogeographical region of Malesia and most of mainland Indochina. Musa acuminata favors wet tropical climates in contrast to the hardier Musa balbisiana, the species it hybridized extensively with to provide almost all modern cultivars of edible bananas. Subsequent spread of the species outside of its native region is thought to be purely the result of human intervention. Early farmers introduced M. acuminata into the native range of M. balbisiana resulting in hybridization and the development of modern edible clones. AAB cultivars were spread from somewhere around the Philippines 4000 years ago and resulted in the distinct banana cultivars known as the Maia Maoli or Popoulo group bananas in the Pacific islands. They may have been introduced as well to South America during Precolumbian times from contact with early Polynesian sailors, although evidence of this is debatable. Westward spread included Africa which already had evidence of Musa acuminata × Musa balbisiana hybrid cultivation from as early as 1000 to 400 BC. They were probably introduced first to Madagascar from Indonesia. From West Africa, they were introduced to the Canary islands by the Portuguese in the 16th century, and from there were introduced to Hispaniola (modern Haiti and the Dominican Republic) in 1516.

Notes:

Ok, I know, it is not native to Belgrade, but owners take such good care of it, it survives frosts of -15 degrees Celsius.