Some banana trees continue producing up to one hundred years, although most banana plantations renew their stock every ten to twenty-five years.
The tree itself also has uses. The leaves are used as wrappers to steam foods in Latin, Caribbean, and Asian cultures. The banana flower is also edible, but if you eat the flower, you obviously won't get any fruit.
The banana is a distant cousin to ginger, turmeric, and cardamom, and is botanically classified as a berry.
There are over four hundred varieties of bananas with the yellow Cavendish being the most favored in America. Americans consume an annual average of twenty-five pounds of bananas per person. Bananas are the world's best-selling fruit, outranking the apple and orange.
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