Ensete ventricosum
| Ensete ventricosum | |
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| Ensete ventricosum, by Walter Hood Fitch (1861) | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Monocots |
| Clade: | Commelinids |
| Order: | Zingiberales |
| Family: | Musaceae |
| Genus: | Ensete |
| Species: | E. ventricosum |
| Binomial name | |
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Ensete ventricosum (Welw.) Cheesman |
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| Synonyms | |
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Ensete ventricosum, commonly known as the Ethiopian banana, Abyssinian banana,false banana, enset or ensete, is an herbaceous species of flowering plant in the banana family Musaceae. The name Ensete ventricosum was first published in 1948 in the Kew Bulletin, 1947, p. 101. Its synonyms include Musa arnoldiana De Wild., Musa ventricosa Welw. and Musa ensete J.F.Gmel. 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.
Like bananas, Ensete ventricosum is a large non-woody plant — a gigantic monocarpic evergreen perennial herb (not a tree) — up to 6 m (20 ft) tall. It has a stout pseudostem of tightly overlapping leaf bases, and large banana-like leaf blades of up to 5 m (16 ft) tall by 1 m (3 ft 3 in) wide, with a salmon-pink midrib. The flowers, which only occur once from the centre of the plant at the end of that plant's life, are in massive pendant thyrses covered by large pink bracts. The fruits are inedible (insipid, flavorless) and have hard, black, rounded seeds. After flowering, the plant dies.
"Enset provides more amount of foodstuff per unit area than most cereals. It is estimated that 40 to 60 enset plants occupying 250-375 sq. meters can provide enough food for a family of 5 to 6 people." – Country Information Brief, FAO June 1995.
Enset (E. ventricosum) is Ethiopia's most important root crop, a traditional staple in the densely populated south and southwestern parts of Ethiopia. Its importance to the diet and economy of the Gurage and Sidama peoples was first recorded by Jerónimo Lobo. The root is the main edible portion as its fruit is insipid. Each plant takes four to five years to mature, at which time a single root will give 40 kg of food. Due to the long period of time from planting to harvest, plantings need to be staggered over time, to ensure that there is enset available for harvest in every season. Enset will tolerate drought better than most cereal crops.
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Wikipedia