Did You Guess What We Have Growing in Our Backyard?

Did you figure out what strange sort of horticulture I posted the other day?
Yep, it's a flowering banana plant.

Not quite the type of native plant the City has in mind for their Neighborhood Habitat Challenge but lovely none the less.

Did you know that there's a Washington Banana Museum?
Do you know any of these banana facts?

1) A cluster of bananas is called a hand and consists of 10 to 20 bananas, which are known as fingers.

2) Banana plants are the largest plants on earth without a woody stem. They are actually giant herbs of the same family as lilies, orchids and palms.

3) Bananas were officially introduced to the American public at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. Each banana was wrapped in foil and sold for 10 cents. Before that time, bananas came to America on the decks of sailing ships as sailors took a few stems home after traveling in the Caribbean.

4) Some horticulturists suspect that the banana was the earth's first fruit. Banana plants have been in cultivation since the time of recorded history. One of the first records of bananas dates back to Alexander the Great's conquest of India where he first discovered bananas in 327 B.C.

5) The average American consumes over 28 pounds of bananas each year.