Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeReal
Gabe, I agree with you there that the root cause of this naming chaos is that bananas do not fit the true definition of a genetic species but outwardly they behave like one.
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Joe,
I do not understand what you mean by "they outwardly behave like species", because edible bananas do not. They are for the most part sterile and incabable of producing any seed that is true to type. They are highly mutated and most varieties are rather far removed from there wild congenors. They are not hybrids that were naturally made, they are mutants from some wild plants that were hybrids and some that were not hybrids (the natural crossing of wild Musa is extremely common) that happened to mutate as well. If you cross Musa acuminata with Musa balbisiana, you will get M. acuminata x M. balbisiana, a seeded wild type plant intermediate between the two species, not anything like edible bananas. In my opinion this is a very different case than other fruits, they are not just interspecific hybrids like other cultivated fruit, they are highly mutated unnatural plants.