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After 4 years my banana tree decided it was time to fruit! (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/houseplants@mander.xyz
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I bought a banana tree in August of 2021 and never thought it would actually fruit. I was walking by it the other night and saw something purple/maroon out of the corner of my eye. Popped my head between some leaves and was greeted by some baby bananas!

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[–] 0 points 1 year ago (1 child)

Yeah, but this person is pretending to understand horticulture at a level he is not educated in. So, he makes a lot of mistakes in his arguments because he's just paraphrasing what he finds through searching the web. Case and point

You can’t grow them like an “herb”, whatever tf that is.

Once you read that point he's made. You know he doesn't understand what he's talking about.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago*

    Bro don't clown me.

    Educated? I have 3 degrees in the plant sciences. A BS in Botany (not a related field, an actual "botany" degree from one of the very few schools that offer that specific degree), an MSc in plant science and a PhD in a related field, spatial geography (my research is in remote sensing, and is largely related to the remote sensing of plants). I'm literally a publishing author, and I usually get brought in because of my background in plant science.

    I've taught undergraduate botany, including the lab sections. During my undergraduate degree I worked in a paleobotany lab, studying plant evolution and thin section woody plant fossils. During one of my graduate degrees, I worked in a plant physiology lab, literally doing acid digestion of woody plant material to look to quantify the amounts lignin and cellulose.

    So if you want to throw shade and do some dick measuring, you better make sure you are packing.

    And, specifically, this exact exercise around how words like "tree" and "herb" are different than technical language, its something we run first year Botany students through to highlight the difference between how we as scientists use language and how that differs from how non-technical people use language. In the exercise I've literally run undergraduates through, its literally the word "tree" we have them focus on. Its an exercise we do in the very first lab we do so we can reset their understandings around the use of language.

    Flat out: There isn't a technical definition of the word tree. Its not a how we think of things in botany. That doesn't mean we can't describe something as "woody", because that has specific definitions. Definitions we can test and quantify.

    I can do a thin section and a chemical stain for celluose, or hemicellulose, or lignin. But guess what? I'll find all three in Banana. So is Banana not a tree if it has all the major bio-molecules associated with wood? Its got all the chemistry.

    You should actually go through the exercise of trying to define what a "tree" is in such a way that nothing you consider an "herb" is included.

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