Banana Plants Are Actually Herbs

That tall, leafy plant we associate with tropical landscapes is a master of botanical disguise. While it certainly looks like a tree, it lacks the single most important feature: a woody trunk. Instead, what appears to be a trunk is a "pseudostem," or false stem. This sturdy, pillar-like structure is ingeniously formed by the tightly wrapped, overlapping sheaths of its massive leaves. This fleshy stalk, which is composed of about 93% water, allows the plant to shoot upwards at a remarkable pace, but it never develops the persistent, woody tissue that defines a true tree.

This herbaceous nature dictates the banana plant's entire life cycle. A tree grows for many years, but a banana plant's pseudostem is a temporary structure with a single purpose: to produce one large bunch of bananas. After fruiting, the pseudostem withers and dies. The plant itself, however, is a perennial that lives on through a large underground stem called a rhizome. New shoots, known as suckers, emerge from the rhizome to become the next generation of fruit (Review)-bearing stalks, continuing the cycle. This process of dying back after flowering is a classic characteristic of an herb, making the banana plant the undisputed giant of the herbaceous world.