47 Fun Facts About Banana

Botanically speaking, a banana is which type of fruit?

A berry: botanically the banana sits with grapes and tomatoes, while strawberries and raspberries, berries only in the kitchen, do not qualify.

Although it looks like a tree, the banana plant is ranked by botanists as the world's largest what?

Herb: what looks like a trunk is really a false stem built from the tightly wrapped bases of its leaves.

Nearly every edible banana descends from two wild species: M. acuminata and which other?

Both species were first described by Luigi Aloysius Colla, and their hybrid carries the name Musa x paradisiaca.

Why is the Cavendish banana so hard to breed?

It is seedless: the Cavendish carries three sets of chromosomes, so growers multiply it as identical clones instead of crossing plants.

Bananas were most likely first domesticated on which large island?

New Guinea: Papuans were growing bananas there before Austronesian-speaking voyagers arrived, and those seafarers later spread the crop, and a word for it, across Asia.

The English word for the fruit is thought to come from banaana in which language?

Wolof: bananas reached Africa from far away in prehistoric times, yet English probably took their name from a West African word, via Spanish or Portuguese.

The genus name Musa may honour Antonius Musa, physician to which Roman emperor?

Augustus: Linnaeus named the genus in 1753, though he may instead have borrowed mauz, the Arabic word for the fruit.

Which two countries were the world's largest banana producers in 2022?

India and China: together they grew about a quarter of the 2022 crop, yet world trade takes only about 20 million tonnes of bananas a year, so most never cross a border.

Which country supplied roughly 36% of the world's exported bananas in 2016-2018?

It has been a leading producer since 1953, helped by a warm, wet climate and no hurricanes to flatten the plants.

The tiers of fruit that make up a banana bunch are known by what name?

Hands: a commercial bunch carries nine or more of them, and it is cut while still green so the fruit can ripen after shipping.

Export bananas are picked green and ripened in sealed rooms filled with which gas?

Ethylene: the fruit makes this gas itself as a ripening hormone, and it switches on enzymes that turn the flesh's starch into sugar.

To ripen a green banana faster at home, seal it overnight in a paper bag with which of these?

An apple: ripe apples give off the same ripening gas that bananas make for themselves, so trapping one in the bag speeds the process.

The supermarket Cavendish banana is named after William Cavendish, the 6th holder of which title?

Duke of Devonshire: his head gardener Joseph Paxton raised a shipment from Mauritius in the Chatsworth greenhouses and named the plant after him.

The Gros Michel, the export banana that ruled until the 1950s, was known in English by which nickname?

Big Mike: once Panama disease had wrecked its plantations, the Cavendish took its place as the world's main export banana.

Panama disease, which wiped out the Gros Michel plantations, is caused by a soil fungus of which genus?

Fusarium: the fungus shrugs off fungicides, so growers can fight it only by keeping infected soil, plants and tools from spreading it.

Where was TR4, the Panama disease strain threatening the Cavendish banana, first identified?

Taiwan: from there the strain spread across Asia, and in 2019 it turned up on banana farms in the Americas.

Panama disease of bananas was first recorded in which country?

Australia: it was recorded there in the 1870s, years before outbreaks hit the banana plantations of Panama and Costa Rica.

Which country hosts the world's largest banana gene bank?

Belgium: the gene bank at KU Leuven stores banana varieties in test tubes and deep-frozen, and shares samples freely with breeders and researchers.

What happens to a banana plant's trunk after it produces its bunch of fruit?

It dies: each trunk bears only one bunch, so growers cut it down, and new shoots from the underground stem take its place.

The 'banana equivalent dose' of radiation is based on which isotope in the fruit?

One dose is usually taken as about 0.1 microsieverts, and a truckload of the fruit can trip radiation portal monitors at U.S. ports.

The main compound behind the aroma of a fresh banana, sometimes sold as 'banana oil', is which ester?

Isoamyl acetate: honeybees release this same compound when they sting, as a pheromone that rallies other bees to sting too.

Abaca, a banana species grown for its fibre, is the source of which rope material?

The plant is Musa textilis, endemic to the Philippines, and its saltwater-resistant fibre is still specified for lifeboat lines.

The 1899 merger that created United Fruit joined the Boston Fruit Company with whose banana business?

Minor C. Keith: building a railroad in Costa Rica drew him into the banana business.

Cuyamel Fruit founder Sam Zemurray was known by which nickname?

Sam the Banana Man: he got his start buying cheap bananas that were about to go overripe and reselling them to inland grocers.

After United Fruit lobbied against land reform, a 1954 CIA-backed coup toppled which country's government?

Guatemala: United Fruit was the country's largest landowner, yet the coup did not save it, and U.S. antitrust action forced it to divest in 1958.

Which American writer coined the term 'banana republic' in his 1904 book Cabbages and Kings?

O. Henry: he fled abroad to dodge an embezzlement charge, then returned home when his wife fell gravely ill.

Cabbages and Kings drew on its author's six months hiding in which banana-exporting country?

Honduras: years later, banana magnate Sam Zemurray backed a mercenary invasion there that made Manuel Bonilla president in 1912.

Latin American journalists nicknamed United Fruit el pulpo, meaning what?

The octopus: its reach extended to Washington, where the Dulles brothers, later Secretary of State and CIA director, had done legal work for it for decades.

In December 1928 troops fired on striking United Fruit workers in the town of Cienaga, in which country?

Colombia: the killings later echoed through Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, where soldiers massacre striking plantation workers.

The Miss Chiquita mascot was created in 1944 by which cartoonist, better known for Hagar the Horrible?

Dik Browne: Miss Chiquita was drawn as a banana until 1987, when artist Oscar Grillo redrew her as a woman.

The original Miss Chiquita, a banana in a fruit hat, was drawn in the manner of which performer?

The company's calypso jingle debuted the same year, and its blue peel-off stickers, still applied by hand, arrived in 1963.

Measuring how slippery a banana peel is underfoot earned researchers which tongue-in-cheek award in 2014?

Ig Nobel Prize: the team found a banana skin underfoot is about as slippery as a well-lubricated surface, because crushing it releases a gel.

The 1960s myth that smoking banana peels gets you high is usually linked to which Donovan song?

Mellow Yellow: the 'bananadine' recipe began as a 1967 Berkeley Barb hoax, and The Anarchist Cookbook later reprinted it.

Which artist designed the peelable banana on The Velvet Underground's 1967 debut album cover?

Andy Warhol: even his involvement did little to boost sales, and the album underperformed commercially when it came out.

Which artist duct-taped a banana to a wall at Art Basel Miami Beach?

Maurizio Cattelan: buyers of the piece really acquire a certificate with display instructions, not any particular banana.

Who paid $6.2 million for Comedian at Sotheby's in November 2024, then ate the banana?

Justin Sun: the fruit had cost 25 cents from a New York street vendor, and after eating it onstage he promised to buy 100,000 more bananas from him.

Banana bread is classed as a 'quick bread' because it rises with what instead of yeast?

Baking soda: it reacts with acidic ingredients in the batter to release carbon dioxide, which makes the loaf rise as it bakes.

Tostones, the Caribbean side dish also called patacones, are prepared how?

Fried twice: the first fry softens the slices so they can be smashed flat, and the second turns them crisp.

The banana split is generally credited to soda jerk David Strickler in 1904, in which Pennsylvania town?

Latrobe: students from nearby St. Vincent College took to the 10-cent treat and spread the idea when they went home.

Bananas Foster, the flambeed dessert, was created in 1951 at Brennan's restaurant in which city?

New Orleans: owner Owen Brennan named the dessert for his friend Richard Foster, a fellow member of the city's Crime Commission.

Bananas Foster is set alight with which spirit?

Rum: dark rum is poured into the pan and set alight, often right at the diners' table as a show.

'Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)' began as a work song of night-shift dock workers on which island?

Jamaica: the dockworkers sing for their loads to be counted so they can go home, and Harry Belafonte's 1956 version became one of his signature songs.

Harry Belafonte's 'Day-O' is heard in the dinner-party scene of which 1988 film?

Beetlejuice: the ghostly Maitlands possess the Deetzes and their dinner guests, but the forced sing-along only amuses the party.

The banana slug is the official mascot of which university?

UC Santa Cruz: the chancellor backed the sea lion as mascot, but students voted for the banana slug in 1986 and he eventually gave in.

In the children's series Bananas in Pyjamas, the two banana heroes are known by what names?

B1 and B2: the series grew out of Carey Blyton's song of the same name, a hit on the children's program Play School.

The yellow, goggle-wearing Minions made their debut in which 2010 film?

Despicable Me: the Minions weren't in the original script, and co-director Pierre Coffin, who recorded a test voice for them, ended up voicing them.

At which archaeological site do abundant banana phytoliths point to some of the earliest deliberate banana planting?

Kuk Swamp: its early farmers also dug ditches to farm the wetland, and they grew taro there as well.