Botanical name: Musa acuminata    Family: Musaceae (Banana family)

Wild banana is best known for being at the origin of the vast majority of cultivated bananas, mostly through hybridization with Musa balbisiana. The trunk is made of tightly packed layers of leaf sheaths emerging from completely or partially buried corms. The leaves are oblong, up to 6.7 m in length and 1 m wide. The inflorescence grows horizontally or obliquely from the trunk. The individual flowers are white to yellowish-white in color and are negatively geotropic (that is, growing upwards and away from the ground). Both male and female flowers are present in a single inflorescence. Female flowers are located near the base (and develop into fruit), and the male flowers located at the tipmost top-shaped bud in between leathery bracts. The rather slender fruits are berries, the size of each depends on the number of seeds they contain. Each fruit can have 15 to 62 seeds, whereas the cultivated varieties are seedless. Wild Banana is native to Tropical & Subtropical Asia.

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The flower labeled Wild Banana is ...