Musa spp.

PLANT NAME: Musa spp.

COMMON NAMES: Mai'a [Hawai'i], banana, plantain [English]; ba jiao, gan jiao, xiang jiao, ba jiao gen (stump), kan-lu (nectar), jiao yu (sap) [China]; guineo [Spanish], box haaz, mopan [Maya]; jaina [Fiji]; kera [Nepal]; mei'a [Tahiti]; meika [Cook Islands]; fa'i, soa'a [Samoa]; kadali [India].

FAMILY: Musaceae (banana family).

TOXICITY: None noted. There are reports of the stem juice used as arrow poison in Africa and Tahiti.

CAUTIONS AND CONTRAINDICATIONS: The sap stains (just TRY getting it off your clothes).
When used topically on infected sores, the wound must be cleaned well to prevent the healing of the skin over the infection.

ENERGETIC CAUTIONS: Fruit should not be eaten in excess [China].

USE AS FOOD:
• Most of the plant is edible and used as food but usually the unripe and partially ripe fruit is used in a way similar to potatoes or made into a type of "flour."
• Leaf buds as vegetable [Hawai'i].
• Flowers cooked and eaten [Philippines].
• Also used as "insurance against famine" [Hawai'i]. Unripe fruit used in curry [India].
• Ashes of the plants may be used as a substitute for salt.
• Green bananas are boiled in their skins, then removed, and made into a kind of "pancake" [Belize].
• Leaves used to wrap tamales [Belize].
• Used alternately as a delicacy and a famine food [Hawai'i].
Beverages
Smoothies [Universal among recovering hippies]. The fruit is used to make alcohol, vinegar, and wine. Banana wine is reputed to prevent malaria [Antilles, Congo]. Banana beer [Choco, Africa].

RANGE: Pan tropical.

NOTES 'N QUOTES
• Sumatra: The god who was sent to earth to finish creation should have fasted or eaten crab (which gets a new shell every year), but instead he ate banana and so man's life is short like that of a banana stalk.
• In Europe and Asia banana was called "fruit of paradise" and "fruit of knowledge". The banana plant was said to be the source of good and evil and that the serpent was hiding in the banana plant before he tempted Eve.