Indoor Hanging plant- String of Bananas: Floral formula

*Curio radicans*, is a scientific name of “String of Bananas,”. It is a beautiful and unique trailing hanging plant. Its slender stems bear small, green, banana-shaped leaves, making it highly attractive. This plant spreads rapidly and looks excellent in pots or hanging baskets; it features long, thin, trailing stems. It thrives even with minimal watering, as its leaves are capable of storing water. It should be placed in a sunny spot, away from strong but direct sunlight. It grows best in well-drained soil.

Indoor Hanging plant- String of Bananas: Floral formula

Scientific Name: Curio radicans

Some Basic Information about Curio radicans (String of Bananas) - Indoor hanging plant

Habit: Perennial, evergreen, trailing succulent herb, producing long pendulous stems that may reach 60–150 cm or more in length; forms dense cascading mats and is commonly cultivated in hanging baskets and containers

Root: Fibrous and adventitious, arising from the stem base and nodes when in contact with soil; roots assist in anchorage, water absorption, and vegetative propagation

Stem: Slender, succulent, green, cylindrical, highly branched, creeping or trailing; stems are flexible and capable of rooting at the nodes under favorable conditions

Leaf: Alternate, sessile, simple, fleshy, cylindrical to curved, resembling miniature bananas; leaves are 1–3 cm long, bright green to bluish-green, with a translucent longitudinal stripe (“leaf window”) that facilitates light penetration for photosynthesis; exstipulate and entire

Inflorescence: Terminal or axillary capitulum (head), borne on slender peduncles arising from mature stems

Flower: Bracteate, complete, actinomorphic, bisexual, epigynous; flowers small, tubular, white to pale pink, often with purple-tinted stamens and possessing a cinnamon-like fragrance

Calyx: Sepals modified into a pappus of fine bristles, persistent and aiding in seed dispersal

Corolla: Petals 5, gamopetalous, forming a tubular corolla with lobed apex; valvate aestivation

Androecium: Stamens 5, epipetalous, syngenesious (anthers fused into a tube around the style); anthers dithecous and dehiscing longitudinally

Gynoecium: Ovary inferior, bicarpellary, syncarpous, unilocular with a single basal ovule; style bifid at apex with two stigmatic branches

Fruit: Cypsela (achene), small, dry, one-seeded, crowned with a persistent pappus for wind dispersal

Floral Formula: Br ⊕ ⚥ K(pappus) C(5) A(5) G(2̲)

Systematic Position-
Division – Angiospermae
Class – Dicotyledonae
Order – Asterales
Family – Asteraceae
Genus – Curio
Species – radicans

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