I've always wondered.... why do bananas grow up???

Answer 1

The "trunk" of the banana plant is actually a densely packed group of concentric leaves, a pseudostem. After the banana plant has grown about thirty leaves, the fruit stem shoots through them from the rhizome and emerges as a terminal inflorescence (a group of flowers at the tip of the stem). The fruit stem matures three to four months after its emergence. Flower bracts soon cover the stem and then roll back almost daily, each exposing a "hand" of bananas. At the beginning of their development, the little hands grow downward, but as they grow, they turn their fingers towards the sun and appear to be growing upside down. This phenomenon is called "negative geotropism.

Answer 2

The banana tree looks like a palm, but is actually an enormous herb with elongated fan-like leaves that can grow to over three meters in length. It grows a completly new "trunk" every year and dies back to its roots after it has flowered and fruited. This is remarkable, considering some kinds grow to heights of forty feet. The trunk is composed of overlapping bases of leaves wrapped tightly to make a fairly rigid column. New leaves constantly emerge at the top, forming a crown of leaves which are blown into tattered strips by the wind. This lowers the wind resistance because their "trunks" are not real trunks and, therefore, not as strong, and could easily be blown down. Eventually, a stem emerges at the top, bearing a large flower surrounded by red bracts. The bananas develop a little distance away from the flowering tip of the stem into clusters called "hands" that contain up to 200 bananas and point upwards through the leaves. Bananas start off growing downward, but then turn toward the light causing their tips to bend upward. This and their increasing weight cause the stem to bend over so that the fruits point upward, explaining why the banana has a slightly curved shape.

Answer 3

The palm-like banana "tree" is actually the world's largest herb. The banana plant may reach a height of 15-30 feet (4.5-9 m) within one year. It’s large palm-like leaves average 6-9 feet (2-3m) in length.

What appears to be the "trunk" of the banana plant is actually a stalk encased in a mass of overlapping leaf bases. The leaf bases provide support for the growing stalk that will produce the flowers, and eventually, banana fruits (Figure 1).

A single banana plant produces several shoots each originating from the underground stem, called a corm. Because the plant can grow new shoots for many successive years, it is a perennial. Each stalk flowers once and then dies.

The tip of the stalk bears a cluster of large purplish bracts that protect the young flowers. These bracts peel back as the flowers mature into fruits. Initially, the flowers point towards the ground, but as the fruits develop, they rise and by harvest time, they stand vertically away from the stalk (Figure 2). A single stalk averages 150 fruits, which are clustered in “hands” of 10-20 fruit.

The flower's nectar attracts pollinators such as bats, birds and insects. The flowers of cultivated bananas, however, do not need to be fertilized in order to develop into fruits. This phenomenon is called parthenocarpy. Several genes signal for the fruit to develop its pulp. The signal comes whether or not the flowers are fertilized.

After a banana fruit develops, the remaining part of the banana flower falls away leaving the scar you see on the bottom tip of the fruit. The unripe fruit of most banana varieties have green skin, but ripe fruit may range in color from green to yellow and red to brown.

Answer 4

The seed of the banana tree is in the fruit. The fruit has developed to grow the way it does to aid in the most efficient distribution of the seed. If left on the tree the "peel" of the banana fruit falls away via gravity and exposes the fruit which can then germinate to make more banana trees.

Answer 5

The little green pods (baby bananas) are slightly angled up because they come from blooms that are upright to allow pollination. Since the bananas grow by simply swelling and enlarging of that simple original upwards angle, it eventually becomes a pronounced upwards curve.

Answer 6

You are correct, assuming you mean the stem part is the bottom... the stem attaches it to the tree... the floral part is on top (as is with most flowering plants) which breaks off after it is fertilized.... btw, did you know monkeys have taught us that the easiest way to get into a banana is the end opposite the stem???
Give that end a light smack and it will easily break away making pealing easy!

Answer 7

Because bananas don't grow on trees... they grow on vines.

That's right... It's a common misconception that bananas grow on trees... but they don't... it's a vine. Furthermore, the banana is a pod that produces seeds. so, just like like other plants that produce pod seeds, it's not uncommon for these to grow upward to allow for blooming.

Just because you see them in the store with with the stem side up, it doesn't mean that's what God intended. The stem is actually at the bottom... and the top of a banana is the brow furry tip that we call the bottom.

Answer 8

You are right, they do grow upwards from the inflorescence stalk. Bananas are usually yellow (green when unripe), but there are also red and brown cultivars. The Bananas grow in large bunches near the top of banana plants - family Musaceae. Globally, bananas rank fourth after rice, wheat and maize in human consumption; they are grown in 130 countries worldwide, more than any other fruit crop. Bananas are native to tropical southeastern Asia but are widely cultivated in tropical regions.

The main or upright growth is called a pseudostem, which when mature, will obtain a height of 2–8 m (varies between different cultivars), with leaves of up to 3.5 m in length. Each pseudostem produces a single bunch of bananas, before dying and being replaced by a new pseudostem. The base of the plant is a rhizome (known as a corm). Corms are perennial, with a productive lifespan of 15 years or more.

The term banana is applied to both the plant and its elongated fruit (technically a false berry) which grow in hanging clusters, with up to 20 fruit to a tier (called a hand), and 5-20 tiers to a bunch.

The flowers: The banana inflorescence shooting out from the heart in the tip of the stem, is at first a large, long-oval, tapering, purple-clad bud. As it opens, the slim, nectar-rich, tubular, toothed, white flowers appear. They are clustered in whorled double rows along the the floral stalk, each cluster covered by a thick, waxy, hood like bract, purple outside and deep red within. The flowers occupying the first 5 - 15 rows are female. As the rachis of the inflorescence continues to elongate, sterile flowers with abortive male and female parts appear, followed by normal staminate ones with abortive ovaries. The two latter flower types eventually drop in most edible bananas.

Fruits: The ovaries contained in the first (lower female) flowers grow rapidly, developing parthenocarpically (without pollination) into clusters of fruits, called hands. The number of hands varies with the species and variety. The fruit (technically a berry) turns from deep green to yellow or red, and may range from 2-1/2 to 12 inches in length and 3/4 to 2 inches in width. The first fruits growing sideways, force the next hand to bend upwards, so as the bunch develops, the last bananas are curved upwards by the ripening bananas below.

the bunch eventually pulls the tree down, so it touches the ground in the more commercial varieties like parthenocarpic (sterile) 'Cavendish' variety.

Answer 9

why bananas grow up - ? up how- are you for real ? - got us all thinking or giving crazy answers-
When I was P R, they grow on trees and plenty were laying all over the side-
while in Africa they were ripe for the picking- hanging on trees, or little old lady carrying a few bunches on their heads- but grow UP - ?-- after several MINUTES I GET IT < THEY GROW UP TO SEE THE WORLD_ -THE ANSWER IN YOUR QUESTION

Answer 10

Why don't apples grow upward? Why do trees grow upward? Why isn't chlorophyll (the thing that makes plants green) blue or magenta? It's just one of those things in nature that really doesn't have an explanation.