ETYM Spanish banana, name of the fruit.
1. Elongated crescent-shaped yellow fruit of the banana tree; remarkable for its soft sweet flesh.
2. Any of several tropical and subtropical treelike herbs of the genus Musa having a terminal crown of large entire leaves and usually bearing hanging clusters of elongated fruits; SYN. banana tree.
Any of several treelike tropical plants of the genus Musa, family Musaceae, which grow up to 8 m/25 ft high. The edible banana is the fruit of a sterile hybrid form.
The curved yellow fruits of the commercial banana, arranged in rows of “hands”, form cylindrical masses of a hundred or more.
They are picked and exported green and ripened aboard refrigerated ships. The plant is destroyed after cropping. The plantain, a larger, coarser hybrid variety that is used green as a cooked vegetable, is a dietary staple in many countries. In the wild, bananas depend on bats for pollination.