Largest herb

There are two main contenders for the title of largest herb (in this case, herb is taken to mean "herbaceous plant" with non-woody stems). The puya, or Queen of the Andes (Puya raimondii), a rare giant bromeliad native to the high Andes mountains of Bolivia and Peru, has yucca-like leaves that typically stand approximately 3–4 metres (9 feet 9 inches–13 feet 1 inch) off the ground. When the puya blooms, its flower spike, or panicle, reaches 10–12 metres (32 feet 9 inches–39 feet 4 inches) tall and have a diameter of up to 2.4 metres (8 feet); extra-large specimens can sometimes grow as tall as 15 metres (49 feet 2 inches). Also reaching a similar size is the giant highland banana (Musa ingens) native to the tropical montane forests of New Guinea. Its main “trunk” regularly reaches heights of 15 metres (49 feet) and its unfurled leaves as high as 20 metres (66 feet) off the ground. There’s evidence of Musa ingens “trunks” growing to 94 centimetres (3 feet) in diameter at breast height (DBH) – the standard for measuring tree trunk girth. Its bunches of bananas, growing on up-to-15-metre-long (49-foot) peduncles (stems), can hold around 300 fruit that in total weigh as much as 60 kilograms (132 pounds). The individual oblong-shaped fruits are around 18 centimetres (7 inches) long and are edible when cooked, with a similar flavour and texture to plantains.

The Queen of the Andes is also the largest bromeliad – a family of plants to which the pineapple also belongs. Puya raimondii is monocarpic; that means it only flowers once in its lifetime before it dies. It is also the slowest-flowering plant, taking 80–150 years to produce its single bloom. The inflorescence – the largest among all plants based on physical size – can bear approximately 8,000 small white flowers.

Although growing to tree-size proportions, banana plants don’t technically have “trunks” but rather pseudostems, which are tightly wound clusters of leaf-stalks (petioles) from which the leaves will unfurl. Because banana plants grow anew each year (i.e., they have no woody parts that persist through winter such as trees and shrubs) they are botanically considered herbs. There are reports of specimens of this plant reaching as tall as 30 m (98 ft) but these have not been scientifically ratified.