The banana, also known as a plantain, is giant herbaceous plant native to the South Pacific. The plant itself has a rather confusing taxonomical hierarchy. In general, “banana” is the name given to those plants that produce a sweeter form of fruit, one that is often consumed uncooked, such as the “desert bananas” that make up most of the fruits consumed in the United States or in Europe. In contrast, the “plantain” often refers to a starchier fruits that are often cooked before eating. Plantains form the bulk of the bananas that are consumed as staple crops. For the purposes of this essay, there is no distinction made between banana and plantain, unless otherwise noted. There are about fifty recognized species of banana, all under the genus Musa, but given the long history of banana hybridization, and the creation of plants with two or three sets of chromosomes (diploid and triploid), it can be difficult for the casual observer to distinguish between banana varieties. Perhaps the easiest classification of the fruit involves differentiating between those species that are domesticated and those that are wild.