Interesting title for a thread, huh? This is a banana tree in my back yard. They are not indigenous to our area, so every fall I have to dig it up and store the root in my garage. Then every spring I re-plant it, and watch it take off. Each leaf stem gives birth to another leaf, and that's how the trunk of the tree grows. Their leaves arrive in a curled up vertical position, and this first shot is looking down into the leaf before it opens.