What is the largest perennial herbaceous plant? My guess would be some kind of banana or bamboo.
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$\begingroup$ That would be the banana. That being said, I seem to have a hard time finding a record of where the largest banana plant was found (but lots of records for largest fruits)... $\endgroup$– user132Commented Jan 15, 2012 at 1:21
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2$\begingroup$ This sounds like another homework question. $\endgroup$– GWWCommented Jan 15, 2012 at 2:15
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$\begingroup$ Is the taxonomy tag appropriate here? $\endgroup$– Rory MCommented Jan 15, 2012 at 11:58
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1$\begingroup$ It is not homework. Question about facts aren't necessarily homework. Please don't be biased. $\endgroup$– qazwsxCommented Jan 15, 2012 at 22:25
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2 Answers
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As mentioned above, the largest perennial herbaceous plant is indeed the banana. Whilst the main reference to this ("Yes, we have more bananas" - an article in the Royal Horticultural Society Journal from May 2002) has been removed from their website it would be I'm sure possible to order should you need to.
This summary of the banana mentions that the pseudo-stem of the banana plant grows to 6-7.6m in height - I haven't found anything taller when looking around so it doesn't generate any reason to doubt the removed article.
Regarding the comments on Bamboo, there are 7 genera containing bamboo species. All of these (Arthrostylidium Rupr, Bambusa Schreb, Chusquea Kunth, Dendrocalamus Nees, Phyllostachys Siebold & Zucc., Pseudosasa Makino and Sasa Makino & Shibata) are described as having persistent woody stems so don't meet your herbaceous requirement.
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$\begingroup$ So what happens with bamboo? Doesn't it grow a lot taller than 6 meters sometimes? It's also perennial and herbaceous, right? $\endgroup$– qazwsxCommented Jan 19, 2012 at 22:16
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$\begingroup$ Not all bamboo species are herbaceous, some are woody. I'll dig into the relative sizes of the two variants some more tomorrow =) $\endgroup$– Rory MCommented Jan 19, 2012 at 22:44
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$\begingroup$ @Problemaniac I've done the research and it seems I was mistaken last night. All genera with common name bamboo in ITIS are woody as shown in my now revised answer =) $\endgroup$– Rory MCommented Jan 20, 2012 at 23:12
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$\begingroup$ So was it a common misunderstanding that "a bamboo forest is/can be just one big tall grass of a kind"? $\endgroup$– qazwsxCommented Jan 21, 2012 at 1:56
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$\begingroup$ It would seem to be - I would imagine that confusion stems (no pun intended) from all bamboo species being contained within the Family Poaceae, which has a common name of 'grasses'. However the distinction between herbaceous and woody happens lower down at Genus. $\endgroup$– Rory MCommented Jan 21, 2012 at 16:36
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The tallest banana species is Musa Ingens (15m) which grows in the forest of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. It also claimed as the the world's largest herbaceous plant. http://www.thestatworld.com/2015/12/musa-ingens-the-tallest-banana-plant-in-world.html
