A perennial herb with a false trunk

The banana plant is a large perennial herb with leaf sheaths that form trunk-like pseudostems. [CTAHR] The plant has 8 to 12 leaves that are up to 9 ft long and 2 ft wide. [CTAHR] Flower development is initiated from the true stem underground (the corm) 9 to 12 months after planting, and the inflorescence grows through the centre of the pseudostem. [CTAHR]

A young banana plant growing in wood-chip mulch, with several large leaves marked by maroon patches, and small pineapple plants in the background — A young Musa acuminata plant, with maroon mottling on the new leaves, photographed by Forest and Kim Starr at Hawea Place, Olinda, Maui, on 19 July 2014. This is a young herb, not a woody tree trunk.Forest and Kim Starr · CC BY 3.0 US

A close-up of a banana inflorescence, with a maroon curling bract and rows of pale male flowers along the stalk — Male flowers and a curling bract of Musa acuminata, cultivar Rose, photographed by Forest and Kim Starr at Waihe‘e, Maui, on 14 February 2013.Forest and Kim Starr · CC BY 3.0 US

Fruits mature in about 60 to 90 days after flowers first appear. [CTAHR] Each bunch consists of a variable number of “hands” along a central stem, and each hand consists of two transverse rows of fruits, or “fingers”. [CTAHR]

A garden scene with a hanging bunch of green bananas among tall banana leaves, with large heart-shaped cocoyam leaves growing at the base — A hanging bunch of still-green bananas on a mature plant in a garden, photographed on 24 June 2026. The large heart-shaped leaves in the foreground are cocoyam, as the photographer’s caption notes, not banana leaves.Paul The Writer · CC0

The young plant in the first photograph is already a herb, not a sapling of a woody tree. The hanging green bunch is still on the plant, with cocoyam leaves at the base.

A perennial herb with a false trunk

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