cavendish

the banana you think of when someone says “banana.”

the weird part is that nearly every cavendish banana is basically a clone of another one. no seeds, almost no genetic diversity, just millions of genetically near identical plants being reproduced over and over again.

that is also why the entire variety is vulnerable.

the cavendish became dominant after panama disease nearly wiped out the gros michel banana in the twentieth century.

now another strain of the same disease threatens cavendish too.

the supermarket banana is basically a global monoculture with a fungal disease slowly chasing it.