MUSACEAE

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            1. SYSTEMATIC POSITION:
            Bentham & Hooker
            Division: Phanerogames (Seed Plants)
                 Class: Monocotyledones
                       Series: Epigynae
                             Family: Musaceae (Scitamineae)
           
            2. MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS:
            Habit – Perennial herbs, often tree-like (pseudostem) in appearance, very rarely woody, perennating by means of underground rhizome/sucker.
            Leaves – Simple, often very large, entire, mid-vein stout with parallel venation, leaf sheath rolled up and overlapping and thus forming the aerial false shoot.
            Inflorescence – Terminal pendulous spike or panicle, subtended by spathaceous coloured bracts.
            Flower – Large, often brightly coloured, hermaphrodite or unisexual, zygomorphic, monoecious, epigynous.
            Perianth – Tepals 6, arranged in two whorls, free or variously united.
            Androecium – Stamens 6, free, arranged in two whorls, 5 stamens perfect while the 6th one is either absent or rudimentary (staminode), anthers dithecous, linear and long.
            Gynoecium – Tricarpellary, syncarpous, inferior, trilocular, ovules numerous, placentation axile, style simple, filiform, stigma 3-6 lobed.
            Fruit – A berry or capsule.
              4. COMPARATIVE SYSTEMATIC POSITION AND AFFINITIES:
            Engler & Prantl have included the families Musaceae, Cannaceae, Zingiberaceae and Marantaceae in the order Scitamineae. Engler & Prantl have included Musa, Ravenala, Strelitzia and Heliconia in the family Musaceae, whereas Hutchinson placed them in a separate family Strelitziaceae and Cronquist and Takhtajan in two distinct families like Strelitziaceae and Heliconiaceae. The family was included in the order Zingiberales by Hutchinson, Cronquist and Takhtajan.
            Musaceae is closely related to the families like Zingiberaceae, Cannaceae and Maranthaceae, and considered to have been derived from the Liliaceous stock. Engler & Prantl believed Musaceae to be the ancestral stock of Orchidaceae.
             5. ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE:
            1. Musa textilis yields manilia hemp (a kind of fibre) of commerce. Fibres are obtained from the leaf base which is used for cordage.
            2. Various species of banana like Musa paradisica, M. champa, M. sapientum, etc. belongs to this family. The fruit of these plants are edible.
            3. Some plants of the family are grown as ornamentals such as – Heliconia spp., Ravenala madagascariensis, etc.
           
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