Plate 1 figs. a–h · 6 observations
This species has been photographed under an open licence only 6 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.
Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.
Native range 20 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| Andaman Is. | AND | ASIA-TROPICAL |
| Assam | ASS | |
| Bismarck Archipelago | BIS | |
| East Himalaya | EHM | |
| India | IND | |
| Jawa | JAW | |
| Myanmar | MYA | |
| Nepal | NEP | |
| New Guinea | NWG | |
| Nicobar Is. | NCB | |
| Philippines | PHI | |
| Sri Lanka | SRL | |
| Thailand | THA | |
| Vietnam | VIE | |
| China South-Central | CHC | ASIA-TEMPERATE |
| China Southeast | CHS | |
| Hainan | CHH | |
| Japan | JAP | |
| Nansei-shoto | NNS | |
| Tibet | CHT |
Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.
Where it actually grows measured, from 351 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 10.1 °C | 17.7 °C | 24.1 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 26.1 °C | 29.6 °C | 33.7 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 1,236 mm | 2,609 mm | 4,626 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 32 mm | 103 mm | 748 mm |
It is not found anywhere that gets close to freezing. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 351 research-grade observations of Musa balbisiana that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.
This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.
Also published as 14 synonyms
A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.
- Musa bakeri Hook.f.
- Musa brachycarpa Backer
- Musa dechangensis J.L.Liu & M.G.Liu
- Musa elata Nakai
- Musa liukiuensis (Matsumura) Makino ex Kuroiwa
- Musa martini hort. ex Carrière
- Musa paradisiaca var. granulosa G.Forst.
- Musa paramjitiana L.J.Singh
- Musa pruinosa (King) Burkill
- Musa rosacea Jacq.
- Musa sapientum f. pruinosa King
- Musa sapientum var. liukiuensis Matsum.
- Musa sapientum var. pruinosa (King) A.M.Cowan & Cowan
- Musa textilis var. liukiuensis (Matsum.) Matsum.
Sourcesevery claim on this page
- World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
- iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
- Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
- Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.
We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.