The plants have a large herbaceous growth habit with leaves with overlapping basal sheaths that form a pseudostem making some members appear to be woody trees.

[7][1] Zingiberaceae Costaceae Cannaceae Marantaceae Lowiaceae Strelitziaceae Heliconiaceae Musaceae As currently circumscribed the family includes three genera.

At the time he wrote Species Plantarum, Linnaeus had first hand knowledge of only one type of banana, which he personally had the opportunity of seeing growing under glass in the garden of Mr. George Clifford near Haarlem in the Netherlands.

[11] In this clearing up of the taxonomy, Ernest Entwistle Cheesman in 1947 revived the genus name Ensete which had been published in 1862, by Horaninow, but had not been accepted.

Acceptance of Musella has varied; as of February 2013[update], the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families considers it a synonym of Ensete,[12] other sources dispute this view.