Banana Trivia Quiz Questions And Answers
What is a banana?
A: A banana is an edible fruit, botanically a berry produced by several kinds of
large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Musa.
In some countries, bananas used for
cooking may be called
what?
A: Plantains.
The fruit is variable in size,
color and firmness, but is
usually elongated and what?
A: Curved.
It has soft flesh rich in starch covered with a rind which
may be what color?
A: Green, yellow, red, purple, or brown when ripe.
The fruits grow in "what" hanging from the top of the
plant?
A: Clusters.
Almost all modern edible seedless bananas come from what
two wild species?
A: Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana.
Musa species are native to where?
A: Tropical Indomalaya and Australia.
They are likely to have been first domesticated where?
A: In Papua New Guinea.
How many countries are they are grown in?
A: At least 107.
Bananas are primarily grown for their fruit, and to a
lesser extent for what?
A: To make fiber, banana wine and banana beer and as ornamental plants.
Worldwide, there is no sharp distinction between what?
A: Bananas and plantains.
In the Americas and Europe, "banana" usually refers to
soft, sweet, dessert bananas, particularly those of what group?
A: The Cavendish group.
Musa cultivars have firmer, starchier fruit and are called
what?
A: Plantains.
In other regions, such as Southeast Asia, many more kinds
of banana are what?
A: Grown and eaten.
The term "banana" is also used as the common name for what?
A: The plants which produce the fruit.
This can extend to other members of the genus Musa like
what?
A: The scarlet banana (Musa coccinea), pink banana (Musa velutina) and the Fe'i
bananas.
The banana plant is the largest what?
A: Herbaceous flowering plant.
All the above-ground parts of a banana plant grow from a
structure usually called a what?
A: A "corm".
Plants are normally tall and fairly sturdy, and are often
mistaken for what?
A: Trees, but what appears to be a trunk is actually a "false stem" or pseudostem.
Bananas grow in a wide variety of soils, as long as the
soil is at least 60 cm deep, has good drainage and is not what?
A: Compacted.
The leaves of banana plants are composed of a "stalk"
(petiole) and a what?
A: Blade (lamina).
Most cultivated banana plants are about how tall?
A: Around 5 m (16 ft) tall.
What is the height range?
A: From 'Dwarf Cavendish' plants at around 3 m (10 ft) to 'Gros Michel' at 7 m
(23 ft) or more.
Leaves are spirally arranged and may grow to what size?
A: 2.7 metres (8.9 ft) long and 60 cm (2.0 ft) wide.
The banana plant's leaves are easily torn by the
wind,
resulting in what?
A: The familiar frond look.
The banana fruits develop from the banana
heart, in a what?
A: A large hanging cluster, made up of tiers (called "hands"), with up to 20
fruit to a tier.
The hanging cluster is known as a what?
A: A bunch, comprising 3–20 tiers.
Individual banana fruits (commonly known as a banana or
"finger") average what weight?
A: 125 grams (0.276 lb).
In cultivated bananas, the seeds are diminished nearly to
non-existence and their remnants are what?
A: Tiny black specks in the interior of the fruit.
Bananas are naturally slightly what?
A: Radioactive.
The banana equivalent dose of radiation is sometimes used
in what?
A: Nuclear communication to compare radiation levels and exposures.
Cavendish bananas are the most common what?
A: Dessert bananas.
Where did farmers first domesticate bananas?
A: In Southeast Asia and Papua New Guinea.
Recent archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence in
Papua New Guinea suggests that banana cultivation there goes back to at least
when?
A: 5000 BCE, and possibly to 8000 BCE.
