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A couple of years ago a guy claimed to have brought a Brazilian plant from the jungle. He wanted to bring a banana but as soon as the plant grew it was obvious that this was no banana plant.

If you water it properly (meaning really a lot!) it grows superfast and if you take a dead part of the "root" and put it in soil it starts growing again.

The plant grows like a banana, the "branch" creates a leaf, it unfolds and then the branch keeps growing until there is a new leaf which unfolds...

Because it was supposed to be a banana and is growing amazingly fast, we called it "bananorris".

The thing is: I have this plant for about eight years now but I couldn't figure out what kind of plant it is.

Does anybody recognize it?

enter image description here

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11

Looks exactly like ginger, though exactly WHICH ginger is going to have to await flowering.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zingiberales

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedychium_coronarium

The flowering types I grow appear to be in a different sub-family than the common ingredient in commerce. They smell quite possible when repotting, but I have not tried eating them nor seen a definitive yes/no answer on that.

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  • Ginger?? Wtf... Hm, when does it usually start growing flowers? This one is about 1-2 years I guess.
    – Ron
    Commented Jun 18, 2016 at 14:07
  • Are there non-consumable ginger types?
    – Ron
    Commented Jun 18, 2016 at 14:08
  • 1
    Mine went 16 years in poor light without flowering, then flowered happily when moved to better light. Recent additions put in better light to begin with took a year or two. I have two cultivars that look like this - white ginger and kahili ginger - as far as I know "yellow" ginger should look about the same (plant-wise) and is the usual one in commerce. I don't know if others are considered inferior or or somehow inedible. I also have something called "blue ginger" which is a whole different family - related to wandering jew, not a "true ginger" at all, looks quite different.
    – Ecnerwal
    Commented Jun 18, 2016 at 14:13
  • Seems to be a science for itself :) Thx for solving my mystery after all these years!
    – Ron
    Commented Jun 18, 2016 at 14:22

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