Musa
Musa is the name of the genus to which wild and cultivated bananas belong. In the hierarchy of botanical classification, a genus comes above species and below family. In the binomial nomenclature system created by Carl Linneaus, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus (e.g. Musa acuminata).
The genus was named Musa by the German-born botanist Georg Eberhard Rumphius in Herbarium Amboinense, a catalogue of the plants of the island of Amboina (Ambon Island in modern-day Indonesia), published posthumously in 17411 . Linneaus accepted the name.
Although cultivated bananas have been given Latin binomial names, the practice has been discouraged since the development of a genome-based system. With regards to bananas, the use of binomial names is best reserved to their wild relatives.
The Musa genus belongs to the Musaceae family and is divided into sections.