Bananas

I read a wonderful book review by Theresa Poalucci, entitled The Infamous Banana - a fruit with a jaded past and uncertain future, in local Edmonds paper The Journal. The review was of Dan Koeppel's book Banana - The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World.

I am intrigued enough about the history, the infamous banana republics, to consider reading the book. The thing I found most curious in the review was the fact bananas plants have a disease that is killing them off, they don't grow from seeds, and are herbs.

So I decided to see what the Oxford Dictionary had to say, from AskOxford.com

Is a banana a fruit or a herb?

Both. A banana (the yellow thing you peel and eat) is undoubtedly a fruit (containing the seeds of the plant: see answer regarding tomatoes), though since commercially grown banana plants are sterile, the seeds are reduced to little specks. However, the banana plant, though it is called a 'banana-tree' in popular usage, is technically regarded as a herbaceous plant (or 'herb'), not a tree, because the stem does not contain true woody tissue