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dnemmerslast Sunday at 2:41 PM1 replyview on HN

Prior to human intervention, 'bananas' were small with tons of seeds.


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fhdkweiglast Sunday at 2:56 PM

And that intervention was just an accidental discovery. Someone thousands of years ago stumbled onto a freak plant with no seeds and had the foresight to take a cutting of it. Every banana that has ever existed has been a clone of that one plant. Every so often, a new mutation occurs that gives us a new variety, but they all trace back to that one plant. It is the most extreme type of monoculture and is constantly threatened by parasites like the Panama Disease, because if one plant is vulnerable, they all are.

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