Bananas

Last week (I won't bore you with how) my wife Mik and I found ourselves being given an exclusive private tour of the Hortus Botanicus in the city of Leiden. (Accident rather than influence!)
At one point we were stopped in front of a banana plant. It was Japanese and called Musa basjoo. Something clicked. I wondered if possibly the plant was named after the great poet, Basho. But, no.
The story is that the followers of a poet called Matsuo Munefusa bought him a rustic hut at Edo in 1680, and in the yard was a banana plant, Musa basjoo. The poet decided to adopt the name of the plant as his own. And so we have a world-famous poet called after a banana.

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