Musaceae

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Musaceae is a botanical name for a family of flowering plants. Such a family has been practically universally recognized by taxonomists, although with differing circumscriptions.

The APG II system, of 2003 (unchanged from the APG system, 1998), also recognizes this family, and assigns it to the order Zingiberales in the clade commelinids in the monocots.

The family then includes three genera, and is famous for the banana and plantain. The genus Musa was formally established in the first edition of Linnaeus' Species Plantarum in 1753—the publication that marks the start of the present formal botanical nomenclature. At the time he wrote the Species Plantarum, Linnaeus had first hand knowledge of only one type of banana, which he personally had the opportunity of seeing growing under glass in the garden of Mr. George Clifford near Haarlem in the Netherlands.

Before 1753 the genus had already been described by the pre-Linnaean botanist Georg Eberhard Rumphius and Linnaeus himself had described the banana he had seen as Musa Cliffortiana in 1736 (this might be described as a "pre-Linnaean" Linnaean name). The 1753 name Musa paradisiaca L. is now known to refer to a hybrid, rather than a natural species. It is known today as Musa (AAB group) 'French' plantain or Musa ×paradisiaca L. This hybrid nature was the cause of much confusion in the taxonomy of the genus that was not resolved until the 1940s and 1950s.

In this clearing up of the taxonomy, Cheesman in 1947 revived the name Ensete which had been published in 1862, by Horaninow, but had not been accepted.

A third genus exists of Musella lasiocarpa, which was first placed in Musa, then in Ensete and back to Musa before eventually it was established as a monotypic genus, in 1978.

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External links :

* [Musaceae] in L. Watson and M.J. Dallwitz (1992 onwards). [The families of flowering plants]: descriptions, illustrations, identification, information retrieval. Version: 27th April 2006. http://delta-intkey.com.

* [Monocot families (USDA)]

* [NCBI Taxonomy Browser]

* [links at CSDL]

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