CSIR-NEERI Biodiversity Portal

Banana / kela

Musa paradisiaca L.

Botanical name	: Musa paradisiaca L..
Common Name	: Banana / kela
Family	: Musaceae
Synonym	: Musa dacca Horan.
About	: A large tree-like herb with thick rhizome, pseudo stem fleshy, succulent formed by the imbricate leaf sheaths. Leaves are large, oblong, petioles long channeled, bright glossy green. Inflorescence is spadix. Flowers are placed on recurved large, spadix drooping. 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 is, 5-toothed, white, corolla oblong. Stamens are 5 in number, filaments long stout, and anthers linear, 2-celled. Style long, stigma lobulate. Fruits are berry, fleshy, narrow at both ends, seeds rarely present in cultivated variety. Flowering and fruiting time is throughout the year. 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. Young leaves are applied as dressing to burns and blisters. The fruit is tonic and laxative. It is distributed throughout the tropics and sub-tropic regions. But is native to India and South-east Asia.