Plantain and Banana Fruits and Empty Fruits Bunches

Plantain, with the scientific name Musa Paradisiaca, is commonly mistaken as a banana (named M. Sapientum) while it is only closely related to the popular specie. 

Much similar to a banana tree, the Plantain is also a tall plant of 3–10 meters [10–33 feet] in height with huge leaves that are almost 1.5 to 3 m long and about 0.5 m wide. They grow in a spiral formation forming a conical false “trunk”. The Plantain fruit is typically larger than the common banana and is green in color. 

Owing to vast similarities and stark differences, the botanical classification of plantains and bananas is complicated to the extent that both are viewed as subspecies of one another. The difference between a Banana fruit and the Plantain fruit is the quantity of starch in Plantain. Plantain is rich in starch before it ripens, therefore it is not eaten raw and is usually cooked green. It is either boiled or fried, often with coconut juice or sugar as a flavoring and is also used in the dried form. The plantain meal can be further refined to flour. 

Believed to be originated in Southeast Asia, the plantain is a staple food and beer-making crop today in some parts of East Africa, Notably in central and eastern Uganda and Tanzania (particularly in the area inhabited by the Chagga people), Plantain is a staple food and a beer-making crop. 

There are two groups of plantains: the horn plantain and the French plantain. Both types are found in India, Africa, Egypt, and tropical America. The French plantains also occur in Indonesia and the islands of the Pacific.