Fruits· Musa × paradisiaca

Guide de culture du Plantain

Plantain is a starchy cooking banana of the Musa AAB cultivar group, eaten boiled, roasted or fried rather than raw, and a staple across West and Central Africa, the Caribbean and parts of Latin America. Botanically it is a cultivar group of the same hybrid species as the dessert banana (Musa acuminata x Musa balbisiana), not a separate species, but it is a distinct crop commercially: it sells into a cooking-staple market rather than a fresh-fruit one, it is reported under its own FAOSTAT item, and it yields well below dessert Cavendish types. The plant is a large perennial herb grown from suckers, cropping in successive ratoon cycles from side shoots after the first bunch.