Family Musaceae

Semester III BOTA
Paper : Plant Taxonomy
Family Musaceae
JDC BOTA SM/12

Characters of Musaceae
Plants large herbs with false stem, or trees, leaves large, compound
inflorescence with large often petaloid bracts; Flower zygomorphic,
hermaphrodite or unisexual, perianth 3+3, petaloid, often united,
stamens 3+2 and staminode, gynoecium tricarpellary, syncarpous,
inferior, trilocular with 1 to indefinite ovules in each locule, fruit berry
or capsule, seed endospermic, often with perisperm.
Habit:
Plants are gigantic herbs, perennial, may attain a height of 5 meters.
Root:
Adventitious arising from rhizome.
Stem:
Underground rhizome, perennating, branched, from which the many naked
leaves spring. The sheaths of the leaves are rolled round one another below,
and form, what looks like an aerial stem. The aerial pseudo stem is tall, stout
and un-branched.
Ravenala has woody arboreal stem reaches nearly 30 metres in height.
Leaf:
Large and oval, simple, stalk and sheath long and broad, blade oblong, end
blunt; leaf blade when young is convolutely rolled up; midrib stout, parallel
veins running from it to the edge, pinnate parallel venation.
JDC BOTA SM/12 Musella lasiocarpa
Inflorescence:
The aerial stem terminates in
an inflorescence. Simple or
compound, spike or panicle,
or panicle spadix with several
woody or leathery bracts,
large, sometimes coloured;
each spathe enclosing clusters
of flowers in two rows, which
are arranged in uniparous
cyme.
Flower:
Large, brightly coloured,
generally trimerous, unisexual or
bisexual, when monoecious,
male flowers usually at the upper
end of the inflorescence and the
female at the lower bracts;
zygomorphic, epigynous,
incomplete, plenty of honey
present.
JDC BOTA SM/12

Perianth:
Tepals 5, in two rows of three each, or
coherent, petaloid, unequal in shape and
size, superior. In Musa five tepals united
into a tubular structure while the sixth
posterior tepal is free and boat shaped.
Androecium:
In hermaphrodite and male flowers
stamens six, – all fertile (Ravenala),
usually 5 fertile one posterior stamen is
absent or staminode (Musa), filament
filiform, free, stiff and attractive, anthers
bithecous, linear, introrse, dehiscence by
vertical slits.
Gynoecium:
Tricarpellary, syncarpous inferior,
trilocular, ovule one and basal (Heliconia)
or numerous with axile placentation;
style single, filiform; stigma trilobed.
In male flower rudiments of ovary in the
form of nectary is often present.
JDC BOTA SM/12

Musa Single flower
JDC BOTA SM/12

Fruit: Fruit Gynoecium:
Elongated berry (Musa),
capsule (Ravenala),
schizocarpic
(Heliconia).
Seed:
Hard, arillate, deeply
coloured, endospermic
or non-endospermic,
yellowish perisperm. In
cultivated varieties spathe
Androecium:
seeds are absent and Fruit
propagation by L.S
rhizomes.
Pollination:
cluster
Entomophilous due to s of
coloured spathe and flowers Perianth
honey. Sometimes
ornithophilous (by birds). Seed
Fruit T .S
JDC BOTA SM/12
Musaceae is a family of flowering plants composed of three genera with ca 91 known species, placed in the
order Zingiberales. The family is native to the tropics of Africa and Asia. The plants have a large herbaceous growth
habit with leaves with overlapping basal sheaths that form a pseudostem making some members appear to be
woody trees. In most treatments, the family has three genera, Musella, Musa and Ensete Cultivated bananas are
commercially important members of the family, and many others are grown as ornamental plants.
As currently circumscribed the family includes three genera. All genera and species are native to the Old World
tropics. The largest and most economically important genus in the family is Musa, famous for the banana and
plantain. The genus Musa was formally established in the first edition of Linnaeus' Species Plantarum in 1753 — the
publication that marks the start of the present formal botanical nomenclature. It is known today that most cultivated
seedless bananas are hybrids or polyploids of two wild banana species - Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana. Musa
paradisiaca are now known to be hybrids belonging generally to the AAB and ABB banana cultivar groups.[5][6]
Hybridization and polyploidy was the cause of much confusion in the taxonomy of the genus Musa that was not
resolved until the 1940s and 1950s.
Musa section Musella Franch. was raised to the rank of genus by H.W. Li in 1978 for the Chinese species Musella
lasiocarpa, which was originally described in Musa in 1889 and transferred to Ensete by Cheesman in 1948. The
species combines characters like the swollen stems of Ensete with the clonal habit of Musa. Acceptance of Musella
has varied; as of February 2013, the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families considers it a synonym of Ensete,other
sources dispute this view.
JDC BOTA SM/12

Strelitzia Ravenala madagascariensis
Distribution of
Musaceae:
The family is commonly
known as Banana family.
It is a small family
comprising of 2 genera
and 42 species by Willis
and 5 genera and 150
species by Lawrence and 6
genera and 225 species by
de Wit (1965). In India
the family is represented
by a single genus Musa
and 10 species. It is
distributed in tropical
Africa, Asia and Australia
JDC BOTA SM/12

Common plants of
the family:
1. Musa paradisiaca –
sub sp. sapientum-
banana of commerce, in
Sanskrit it is called kadli.
2. Ravenala
madagascariensis –
Commonly called
traveller’s tree or
traveller’s palm.
3. Orchidantha – flowers
brightly coloured with
one enlarged petal called
labellum.
4. Strelitzia reginae – a
bird of paradise due to
its perianth in the form
of flying bird.
5. Heliconia –is an
ornamental plant .
. Orchidantha Heliconia
JDC BOTA SM/12
Musa is one of two or three genera in the family Musaceae; it includes
bananas and plantains. Around 70 species of Musa are known, with a broad
variety of uses.
Though they grow as high as trees, banana and plantain plants are not
woody and their apparent "stem" is made up of the bases of the huge leaf
stalks. Thus, they are technically gigantic herbs.
Banana plants represent some of the largest herbaceous plants existing in
the present, with some reaching up to 9 metres (30 ft) in height. The large
herb is composed of a modified underground stem (rhizome), a false trunk,
a network of roots, and a large flower spike. The false trunk is an
aggregation of the basal portion of leaf sheathes; it is not until the plant is
ready to flower that a true stem grows up through the sheath and droops
back down towards the ground.[2] At the end of this stem grows a peduncle
with many female flowers protected by large purple-red bracts. The
extension of the stem (this part called the rachis) continues growth
downward where a terminal male flower grows. The leaves originate from a
pseudostem and unroll to show a leaf blade with two lamina halves.[3] Musa
reproduces by both sexual (seed) and asexual (suckers) processes, utilizing
asexual means when producing sterile (non-seedy) fruits. Further qualities
to distinguish Musa include spirally arranged leaves, fruits as berries, latex-
producing cells present, 5 connate and 1 member of the inner whorl
distinct, and petiole with one row of air channels
JDC BOTA SM/12
Economic Importance of Musaceae:
1. Food:
The genus Musa is of great economic value and possesses several very important species and varieties. It is
extensively cultivated in tropics and subtropics for its edible fruits.
The fruit of Musa paradisiaca subspecies sapientum (Banana H. Kela) when ripe is eaten as fruit.
The unripe fruits of banana are dried and ground to form plantain-meal. The green bananas are used as
vegetables.
Banana is a good source of digestible starch. The ripe fruits are used as diet in dysentry. It is also used in
preparation of alcoholic drinks-banana wine.
2. Medicinal:
The roots and stems of M. paradisiaca are used as tonic in blood and veneral diseases. The juice of flowers
mixed with curds is used in dysentry and menorrhagia. The sap of stem is used in nervous diseases like
hysteria and epilepsy. The banana powder is used in dysentry.
3. Fibre:
From the sheathing leaf bases of Musa textilis, a very useful fibres are extracted, which are woven into abaca
cloth. The fibre is called manila hemp or abaca.
4. Industrial:
After distillation, the fruit pulp is used in dyeing of cotton, leather and even wood. After burning of dried
fruit skin of Musa sapientum the ash or residue so obtained is very rich in potash and is largely used in soap
industry.
5. Other:
The leaves of Musa are used as plates in S. India.
JDC BOTA SM/12

Ensete
False banana Starch Extraction
of Africa from Rhizome
Fibre extraction from Leaf sheath
Fermented starch ready for transport to market

JDC BOTA SM/12
Thanks for your attention.
JDC BOTA SM/12

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Semester III BOTA

Paper : Plant Taxonomy

JDC BOTA SM/12

JDC BOTA SM/12

JDC BOTA SM/12

JDC BOTA SM/12

JDC BOTA SM/12

JDC BOTA SM/12

JDC BOTA SM/12

Fibre extraction from Leaf sheath

Fermented starch ready for transport to market

JDC BOTA SM/12

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