Ensete ventricosum

Common card · No. 227065

Ensete ventricosum, commonly known as enset or ensete, Ethiopian banana, Abyssinian banana, pseudo-banana, false banana, and wild banana, is a species of flowering plant in the banana family Musaceae. The only country where the domesticated form of the plant is cultivated is Ethiopia, where it provides the staple food for approximately 20 million people. The name Ensete ventricosum was first published in 1947 in the Kew Bulletin.. Its synonyms include Musa arnoldiana, Musa ventricosa, and Musa ensete. In its wild form, it is native to the eastern edge of the Great African Plateau, extending northwards from South Africa through Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania to Ethiopia, and west to the Congo, being found in high-rainfall forests on mountains, and along forested ravines and streams.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Ton Rulkens from Mozambique, CC BY-SA 2.0