Banana

Banana is the common name for a type of fruit and also the herbaceous plants of the genus Musa which produce this commonly eaten fruit. They are native to the tropical region of Southeast Asia. Bananas are likely to have been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea. Today, they are cultivated throughout the tropics, primarily for their fruit, and to a lesser extent for the production of fibre and as ornamental plants. As the banana plants are normally tall and fairly sturdy they are often mistaken for trees, but their main or upright stem is actually a pseudostem (literally "fake stem"). For some species this pseudostem can reach a height of up to 2 to 8m, with leaves of up to 3.5m in length. Each pseudostem can produce a bunch of yellow, green or even red bananas before dying and being replaced by another pseudostem. A 2008 study reported that ripe bananas exhibit a blue fluorescence when exposed to ultraviolet light. This property is attributed to the degradation of chlorophyll giving rise to the accumulation of a fluorescent product in the skin of the fruit. Green bananas do not show any sign of fluorescence. The study suggested that this allows animals which are capable of seeing in the ultraviolet spectrum to detect ripened bananas.