Walking Banana Plants

It is a common myth that banana plants may "walk" or move as they grow. This myth originates form South American banana plantations, and is a gross misunderstanding of how the banana plant grows.

To resolve this misunderstanding, it is first important to know that the banana plant is not a tree, but a herb. What this means is that the part of the banana plant that sticks out of the ground (called a pseudostem) is only a small part of the plant, and in fact grows, bears fruit and dies all within a year, compared to the relatively long lifespan of the plant of up to 25 years.

The banana stem exists underground, growing laterally. The plant will grow only up to two pseudostems at any given time, with several months' difference between them.

As the pseudostems grow, bear fruit and die, it looks as though the plant is moving slightly, whereas all that is really happening is that the actual banana plant is growing laterally underground and sending its' pseudostems up in slightly different positions.

The position of the pseudostems' growing site may differ from the original by up to 40 centimetres in the lifetime of a banana plant.