this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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It's considered an herb because the vegetation dies back after fruiting, instead of remaining persistent. If you really want to get technical it's a forb, which is an herb that isn't grass-like. But yeah, it's literally just a description of its growth habit. I don't think I've ever heard someone casually calling a Wisteria a "liana" , for example, because it's not really a helpful term outside of certain botanical contexts
My broader point was to dismiss the ungrounded pedantry of insisting that a Banana tree is an "herb" rather than a tree.
Likewise "forb" as a term isn't any more meaningful than "herb" or "tree", and if one is going to engage in pedantry, then you need to actually get it fully and technically correct, which you can't do with words like "herb" or "tree" or "forb" because they aren't technical words with scientific (read: testable) definitions.
The argument about about which term is more correct isn't meaningful, because neither are. There isn't a technically agreed upon definition for what is an "herb" and what is a "tree" because they aren't technical terms. And in those situations, we should just use the term most useful to the "thing" , which in this case, is "tree".
My issue isn't with calling a banana an herb or a tree. My issue is the pedantry around correcting someones language towards a no-more-correct, and perhaps even less correct term. If you are going to correct someone, you need to actually be correct. And its no more correct to call a banana a tree than it is an herb. I grow and sell both bananas, and yes, banana trees (also known as pups or keiki). That's what the people who grow and farm them call them.
You seem to be making two points here:
That seems fair enough.
But then you seem to say that:
I don't think it is pedantic at all. I have a banana patch, and I certainly consider them bushes instead of trees. I think people are interested in finding out the trivia that a banana tree is not a tree, but an herb.
Well you see, this dude is actually a moron who is quoting directly from the wikipedia page for "tree." Trying to sound like he understands what he's talking about. If he had done the due diligence of a first year botany student, he would at least have read the first paragraph of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana Which reads:
A banana is an elongated, edible fruit—botanically a berry[1]—produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Musa.
I know you're not addressing me. I just really don't appreciate people who claim to experts in the field I have devoted the last ten years of my life to. Who then demonstrate that they don't even understand what an herbivorous plant is.
Don't listen to him, he's just a wikipedia warrior.
Bro if you are going to throw shade, at least have the cajones to @ me.
I've taught first year botany and have a BSc in Botany. And I have graduate degrees in related fields.
This exact debate happening here is literally an exercise we do in the very first lab with first year botany students to highlight this exact issue: that there are differences in the technical use of language and the common use of language.
And the specific example we use? Guess what. Its "tree". We literally run undergraduates through the exercise of attempting to define the word "tree" to show them the difference between technical and scientific uses of language and how we might colloquially discuss things.
The point is to show students how to be careful with their use of language, and that in the sciences, we try to work towards terms that are both exclusive and exhaustive to avoid the kind-of fuzziness associated with normal language.
I don't need to @ you, anyone who reads this thread can see you and know who I'm referring to