Naturally straight bananas have been discovered growing on a small island 47km off the coast of Costa Rica.
Plátano Recto, a land slightly smaller than the Isle of Wight, has been off-limits to visitors since being declared a Turtle Sanctuary in 1965 to protect its population of breeding hawksbill turtles. Little attention had been paid to Plátano's former banana plantations, until American botanist Dr April F Storey visited the island to survey its flora in 2025.
Dr Storey was astonished to discover that every one of the island's rewilded banana plants was producing “arrow-straight bananas. There wasn't a curve in sight”. Dr Storey went on to explain why this is so rare “bananas are naturally curved as they grow upwards against gravity towards the sun. But here on Plátano, they just grow straight down.”
She suggests this might be an adaptation to cope with climate change. “Banana plantations in Latin America and the Caribbean have been negatively affected by climate change. The straight banana might be an attempt by the plant to keep its head down in the cool.”
But she has another theory – bananas have been domesticated for so long, “the original, ur-banana so to speak, might have been straight and the plant only developed its curves through contact with humans.”
News of the straight banana of Plátano has excited some in the banana-producing business. Avril Peel, CEO of Europe's biggest banana producer: Fahey, Woodward and Dallin (FWD), said that straight bananas could be a big win for the industry: “they would be easier to pack, transport and distribute. A bendy banana takes up twice the space.”
Others, however, have said that the public won't trust a straight banana. Irma Pearlove, head of the PR firm Pearlove and Pips, dismissed the new fruit as “Dire Straights!”
The irony of straight bananas would not be lost on FWD's British colleagues. During the UK's Brexit referendum, a myth about curved bananas being banned by the EU was a rallying call for many who wanted out of the union.
For now, Dr Storey has warned against commercial exploitation of the straight banana, calling for Plátano Recto to be declared the world's first National Park devoted to the protection of bananas. A Banana Republic perhaps?
Disclaimer: this is an April Fools' Day article. It is not factual and some of the people and institutions quoted in it are not real.
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Top image: Alamy
