Bananas are the worlds favorite fruit and many nations depend on banana trees to supply its citizens with this delicious food product to save them from famines. Bananas are available on markets year round and are rich in vitamins, minerals, and fiber, containing only small hollow seed that are infertile. Ornamental bananas, Musa ensete and Musa nana are inedible but in high demand for landscaping.
India is the worlds largest producer of bananas and Alexander the Great found them growing there in 327 BC, when he conquered India. Soldiers of Alexander the Great returned to Greece and Persia with bulbs from banana plants, Musa accuminata, where they were distributed and planted.
Antonius Musa, the personal physician of Augustus Caesar, imported the first banana trees, Musa accuminata, to Rome from Africa in 63 BC. Later, slaves from Portugal brought bananas to Europe from Africa in the early 1400s. Even though the banana is believed to have originated in India, (Eastern Asia), it was established in Africa and Europe as a staple food product many centuries ago and came into North America through Spanish missionaries.
Those first bananas that people knew in...