Brace yourself for the titanic giant highland banana, Musa ingens – the veritable king of bananas! This plant grows in the tropical montane forests of the Arfak Mountains in Indonesia’s West Papua province, towering over the canopy like a banana skyscraper.
With leaves large enough to cover a car, M. ingens flaunts blades measuring a whopping 5 meters long and 1 meter wide. Its trunk-like pseudostem, comprised of tightly wrapped leaf stalks, can eclipse giraffes at 15 meters tall. Topped with leaves, this banana behemoth can rocket to 20 meters, making it the loftiest known plant on Earth!
But the real showstopper is its stupendous, world-record breaking fruit. These bananas grow in clusters weighing an unbelievable 60 kilograms – heavier than a fully grown chimpanzee! Perched atop peduncles thicker than a burly arm and longer than a city bus at 15 meters, each cluster holds over 300 oblong fruits. These titan bananas reach over 18 centimeters long, filled with seeds and sweet, sunshine-yellow pulp.
With flavors boasting notes of fine butternut squash blended with sweet banana and a zip of tangy lime and citrus, these fruits are a taste sensation when cooked. Truly, M. ingens is the undisputed king of all bananas, an epic giant reigning supreme in the plant kingdom!
Text credit: Earth Unreal
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