There are 70 species in the genus Musa; these are the plants producing bananas and plantains. Though it is assumed bananas grow on trees, the “trunk” is made up of tightly compressed leaf stalks strong enough to support the weight of the fruit clusters as they mature and ripen. Bananas are the fruit of giant herb plants. The farmers of Southeast Asia and Papua New Guinea were the first to cultivate the banana. The largest producer of bananas is India; the biggest exporter is Ecuador.
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New Guinea, an island shared by Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, is the largest tropical island in the world and the highest in average elevation. This allows for an incredible diversity of fauna and flora. In area, the island of New Guinea comprises less than .05% of the earth’s total surface area, but contains an astonishing 8% of the world’s known vertebrate; over 4,500 species. New Guinea is known for its wide variety of orchids and contains almost 3,000 species representing 3/4’s of the world’s total.
