This could turn into a thread worthy of alt.usage.English, so I won't
say more than "Hmm..."!

NO, this is about correctly defining what you see and understanding how the
plant is actually constructed.

Bananas do not have any of the woody tissues that make up an actual tree.

Just because a plant is very large that does not automatically make it a
"tree".


"Mike Lyle" wrote in message
...
p.k. wrote:
Mike Lyle wrote:
[...]
My father recalled harvesting some bananas in New Guinea during
the
War by simply driving a Jeep at the "trunk".

Ah! But....

Normal banana "trunks" are not trunks at all....

.... but the flowering & fruiting occurs on a true stem which grows
from the basal corm up through the pseudostem of leaf bases....

...so, harvesting by driving at the trunk does not require the
".."!

This could turn into a thread worthy of alt.usage.english, so I won't
say more than "Hmm..."!

--
Mike.