Bracts - A leaf like or scale like plant part, usually small, sometimes showy or brightly colored, and located just below a flower, a flower stalk, or an inflorescence.”

Concentric - Having a common centre.

Corm - A short thick solid food-storing underground stem, sometimes bearing papery scale leaves, as in the crocus or gladiolus.

Hand - Common term for the group of bananas clustered together on the stalk.

Herbaceous - 1. Relating to, or characteristic of an herb as distinguished from a woody plant. 2. Green and leaf like in appearance or texture.”

Inflorescence - A flower cluster (Click here for diagram.)

Perennial - Living three or more years.

Rhizome - A plant stem that grows horizontally under or along the ground and often sends out roots and shoots. New plants develop from the shoots. Ginger, iris, and violets have rhizomes as well as bananas. Also called rootstock.

Sheath - An enveloping tubular structure, such as the base of a grass leaf that surrounds the stem or the tissue that encloses a muscle or nerve fiber.”

Stalk - A stem or main axis of a herbaceous plant.

Sucker – A secondary shoot produced from the base or roots of a banana plant that could become a new plant.