History, Origin, Domestication, and Evolution

Banana, a popular and ancient fruit, has a complex state of evolution in plant systematics. Being one of the highly evolved crops, it has attracted many researchers to study various aspects of its origin, evolution, and domestication. In the present chapter, an account of history of domestication, spread of the species to various continents, and studies on ethnobotanical and linguistic evidence of crop origin and distribution has been presented. Further, their taxonomic status as evidenced by various research works, including numerical taxonomy, cytological studies, and molecular markers to understand the involvement of genomes other than M. acuminata and M. balbisiana in the evolution of the cultivated bananas, is given.