Bananas are an edible fruit, usually elongated and curved, with soft internal flesh rich in starch and covered with a rind which may be yellow, purple or red when ripe.
In popular culture and commerce, "banana" usually refers to soft, sweet, dessert bananas, particularly those of the Cavendish group, which are the main exports from banana-growing countries.
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- Bananas are naturally slightly radioactive because of their potassium content and the small amounts of the isotope potassium-40 found in naturally occurring potassium.
- A person slipping on a banana peel has been a staple of physical comedy for generations.
- The Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō is named after the Japanese word for a banana plant. The "bashō" planted in his garden by a grateful student became a source of inspiration to his poetry, as well as a symbol of his life and home.