象腿蕉 xiang tui jiao

Musa glauca Roxburgh, Pl. Coromandel 3: 96. 1820.

Plants not stoloniferous, sap pale yellow-orange. Pseudostem yellow-green, with black-purple spots when old, cylindric, to 5 m (measured to crown of leaves at maturity), base swollen and jarlike. Petiole short; leaf blade oblong, 1.4--1.8 m × 50--60 cm, glabrous, base cuneate, apex caudate. Inflorescence cylindric, to 2.5 m. Bracts numerous, imbricate, persistent. Flowers 10--20 per bract. Compound tepal ca. 2.5 cm, apex 3-cleft; free tepal obcordate, shorter then compound tepal, apex with a large mucro. Berries purplish black, glaucous, obovoid-oblong, ca. 9 × 3.5 cm, base acuminate, apex rounded and with persistent perianth. Seeds black, globose, ca. 1.2 cm in diam., smooth. Fl. and fr. all year. 2 n = 18.

Wild or cultivated in mountainous areas; 800--1100 m. S and W Yunnan [India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Philippines, Thailand].

The species is used to feed pigs.