Musa ingens is the species regarded as the world’s largest herbaceous flowering plant by height.
This giant banana reaches roughly 25 metres tall, making it exceptionally large for a plant that is not a woody tree. Its apparent trunk is a pseudostem formed from tightly packed leaf bases. The plant is herbaceous because it does not produce a conventional woody trunk, even though its size resembles that of a tree.
Musa ingens is native to the montane forests of New Guinea, especially in Indonesia’s Papua region. It produces enormous leaves and large underground structures that support its rapid growth. Like other bananas, it belongs to the monocot order Zingiberales.
The species is not the ordinary cultivated dessert banana. Many edible bananas are hybrids involving Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana, while M. ingens is a distinct wild species prized mainly for its remarkable scale.