• Question: Where are the seeds in banana and could I plant them to grow a banana tree?

    Asked by lisaloo to Claire, Kate, Matt, Rob, Sam on 21 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Sam Geen

      Sam Geen answered on 21 Jun 2013:

      There actually aren’t seeds in bananas – bananas are mostly clones! New plants are taken by cutting bits off old plants. This means that bananas are susceptible to genetic diseases because they all have the same DNA. In the past there was a disease that wiped out the main species of banana, which means that the bananas we eat today are not the same as the ones we used to eat.

    • Photo: Matthew Pankhurst

      Matthew Pankhurst answered on 26 Jun 2013:

      The seeds of a banana are the tiny black specks you sometimes see – but they don’t work. As Sam says we have grown most of the bananas we eat by chopping bits off the plants and sticking them in the ground and they grow again (more or less!)
      Do an image search for “banana seeds” on google and you’ll see some other types of bananas that have big seeds!

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