Banana Does not Grow on a Tree

Do you know that Bananas do not grow on a tree? 

They grow on large treelike herbaceous flowering banana plants. 

Do you know that Banana's skin is not yellow when bananas are still on the plant?

Banana skin turns yellow* only when banana is ripe. 

And a banana is botanically a berry**! 

The first time I saw bananas on a banana plant was at the botanic garden, The teardrop-shaped blossom with layers of purplish outer leaves banana flower was at the end of a banana bunch. This banana flower is the male banana flower, which produces pollen to fertilize female banana flowers which become bananas when pollenated.

The banana flower is a sex organ - literally and figuratively.

Banana plant can bare fruit, i.e. bananas, only once in its life time!

That's not what I saw at Singapore Botanic Garden. I saw bananas growing on the same banana plant season after season. Checking online, the exact definition for banana plant bears banana only once in its life time is not what I thought. Here is the precise description

A banana plant's main stalk (pseudostem) only bears fruit once in its lifetime. After the fruit is harvested, that stalk dies and is cut down, but the plant continues to produce new fruit from "suckers" that grow from the base. This allows for a continuous cycle of fruit production from a single banana "plant" or stool, but it happens on different, younger stalks. 

Sometimes I see bananas only near the base of banana bunch; other times I see small bananas on the whole bunch stem. The difference is likely due to the specific variety of banana and the conditions under which it grew, not pollination, because modern bananas are seedless and do not require pollination.

The more I learn about bananas, the more I know what I did not know.

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Note

* Bananas can have other colors, such as red.

**Two Fruit classifications (from Google Search)

Classifications by development from the flower: 

1. Simple fruits: Develop from a single ovary of one flower. Examples: Peach, tomato, apple.
2. Aggregate fruits: Develop from multiple ovaries of a single flower. Examples: Raspberry, blackberry.
3. Multiple fruits: Develop from the fused ovaries of multiple flowers in a single inflorescence. Examples: Pineapple, fig, mulberry.
4. Accessory fruits: Incorporate other flower parts besides the ovary. Examples: Apple, strawberry. 

Classification by structure and texture: 

Fleshy fruits: Have a soft, fleshy pericarp (fruit wall) when ripe.

1. Berries: Entire pericarp is fleshy with multiple seeds (e.g., grapes, tomatoes).
2. Drupes: Have a single, hard, stony seed inside a fleshy fruit (e.g., peach, cherry).
3. Pomes: Fleshy part develops from a floral tube, with a cartilaginous core containing the seeds (e.g., apple, pear).

Dry fruits: The pericarp is dry when ripe.

1. Legumes: Dehisce (split open) along two seams (e.g., peas, beans).
2. Nuts: Have a hard shell and a single seed.
3. Capsules: Open at maturity to release multiple seeds (e.g., poppy)