Banana (Engl.)

Oversized Shrub Height: 4.8m Leaves: Leaf blades lanceolate, big, 2.5-3.25m long, 60-70cm wide, apex truncate, base cuneate with unequal lobes, green, thinly waxy. Petioles 45-55cm long, green or light pink with brown bars at base: their margins erect: mid-rib green. Leaves of young plants usually blotched with bars of purplish brown pigmentation around their mid-ribs. Flowers: Male bud ovoid, 9-16cm long, 5-8cm across, convolute, blunt tip, dark purple outside, purple inside, thinly waxy. Basal flower female, 7.5-8.0cm long, 0.7-0.8cm across, yellowish green: style 3.0-3.1cm long, sub-terete: stigma capitate, slightly flat, 0.4-0.5cm in diameter, yellow. Staminode 0.9-1.0cm long, 1.4-1.5cm wide, white or sometimes pink as base but yellow at tip. Free tepal rounded 1.9-2.0cm long, 1.8-1.9cm wide, tip acuminate, translucent. Male flowers small, 14-16 per hand: ovary 1.1-1.2cm long, 0.3-0.4cm wide, yellowish green: style 3.2-3.3cm long, yellowish: stigma capitate. Compound tepal 3.2-3.3cm long, 1.4-1.5cm wide, pink at base but bright yellow at tip. Free tepal obovate, 1.5-1.6 cm long, 0.9-1.0 cm wide, tip acuminate, translucent. Stamen 3.2-3.5cm long, 0.2 cm wide, white: anther 1.6-1.8cm long, 0.2 cm wide, pink: filament as long as anther. Pollen grains many and fertile. Fruits: Fruits medium, 8-9cm long, 1.5-1.8cm in diameter, pedicel 1.5-1.7 cm long, tip 0.9-1.2cm long. Pericarp thin, pulp yellow and slightly soft when ripe.