Climbing Your Family Tree

What is the difference between a coconut, banana and a pineapple tree? Aren’t they all in the palm tree fam?

My friend and I were driving to Florida and we were just talking about funny things. Well we came across the discussion of palm trees. In movies you see monkeys climbing trees to get bananas, or climbing trees to get coconuts. And we came across the pineapple, which resembles a palm tree…..Well I was just wondering is it all the same? Are they all in the same family??? The silly things you do when your in the car for 15 hours straight…..hahahha Thanks

No the three plants that you have mentioned are not from the same family . Only one thing is common for them and that is ; all the three are Monocotyledonous plants ( Monocots for short )

1) Coconut ==The Coconut Palm (Cocos nucifera) is a member of the Family Arecaceae (palm family). It is the only species in the genus Cocos, and is a large palm, growing to 30 m tall, with pinnate leaves 4-6 m long, pinnae 60-90 cm long; old leaves break away cleanly leaving the trunk smooth.

The trunk is generally unbranched but branched coconuts palms are also reported. Branching may occur due to injury caused by insect pests.

The term coconut refers to the nut of the coconut palm, which commonly is referred to as a nut, and is in fact not a fruit, as some say.

The coconut palm is grown throughout the tropical world. It is so common in Kerala that one of its popular name in Malayalam is Keram derived from Kerala. In fact, it is the state tree of Kerala. Another common name of coconut in Malayalam is Thenga and the palm itself is called Thengu. Virtually every part of the coconut palm has some human use, culinary and non-culinary and is justifiably called as a kalpa vruksham.

2 )Banana===Banana is the common name used for herbaceous, cultigenic plants of the genus Musa, and is also the name given to the fruit of these plants.

They are native to the tropical region of Southeast Asia, the Malay Archipelago, and Australia.

Today, they are cultivated throughout the tropics.

Banana plants are of the family Musaceae.

They are cultivated primarily for their fruit, and to a lesser extent for the production of fiber and as ornamental plants.

Because of their size and structure, banana plants are often mistaken for trees.

The main or upright growth is called a pseudostem, which for some species can obtain a height of up to 2–8 m, with leaves of up to 3.5 m in length.

Each pseudostem produces a single bunch of bananas, before dying and being replaced by a new pseudostem.

The banana fruit grow in hanging clusters, with up to 20 fruit to a tier (called a hand), and 3-20 tiers to a bunch.

The total of the hanging clusters is known as a bunch, or commercially as a “banana stem”, and can weigh from 30–50 kg.

The fruit averages 125 g, of which approximately 75% is water and 25% dry matter content.

Each individual fruit (known as a banana or ‘finger’) has a protective outer layer (a peel or skin) with a fleshy edible inner portion.

Typically the fruit has numerous strings (called ‘phloem bundles’) which run between the skin and the edible portion of the banana, and which are commonly removed individually after the skin is removed. Bananas are a valuable source of Vitamin A, Vitamin B6, Vitamin C, and potassium.

3)Pineapple.==The pineapple (Ananas comosus) is a tropical plant and fruit (multiple), probably native to Brazil or Paraguay. It is a tall (1–1.5 m) herbaceous perennial plant with 30 or more trough-shaped and pointed leaves 30–100 cm long, surrounding a thick stem.

The leaves of the Smooth Cayenne cultivar mostly lack spines except at the leaf tip, but the Spanish and Queen cultivars have large spines along the leaf margins.

Pineapples are the only bromeliad ( Family Bromeliaceae) fruit in widespread cultivation.

Climbing your family tree

101 OF THE BEST FREE WEBSITES FOR CLIMBING YOUR FAMILY TREE $0.99 I’ve been ancestor-hunting since I was about 8-years-old. Back then, I didn’t know anything about GEDCOMs, pedigree charts, census data or compiling sources. But what I did know was I had an insatiable curiosity about the people who came before me – - thanks, in part, to the family stories spun by both my grandmothers.One of them regaled me with tales of her own grandfather – a Civil War veteran o…

Climbing Your Family Tree: Online and Off-Line Genealogy for Kids $6.95 In the ten years since the publication of Do People Grow on Family Trees? (121,000 copies in print), the Internet has completely transformed genealogy, making family history the second most popular hobby in the U.S. after gardening and genealogy the second most searched for subject on the Web. Now completely revised, updated, retitled, and filled with detailed guidance on utilizing the Internet, C…

Climbing Your Family Tree $6.95 …