Continuing the discussion from Who is growing bananas for fruit?:
The current stalk on my Namwa, a cultivar of Pisang Awak:
All trimmed up for the holidays 
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This silly plant has put out a “flag leaf”. An inflorescence will follow in a few days 
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I’ve never seen anything like that. You people and your warm freaky climates. 
Do bananas have to have cross pollination or no?
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Bananas grow from a bulb. All of the edible types are self-fertile and seedless. 
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Seedless? Where do they come from then I wonder? 
Bulbs.
Looking forward to progress
Those are SOOO cool!! I can’t wait to watch that bloom (is it called a bloom) start to produce a big bunch of bananas. I rented a house in Puerto Rico for a vacation about 15 years ago and it had a big banana tree with 2 big, long bunches that were ripening while we were there. To this day, my greatest fruit thrill of all time was walking outside to that tree and picking nearly ripe bananas! Like @applebacon, I’m very jealous of those of you with a climate warm enough for that!
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Yes, informally … but more accurately an inflorescence since it contains numerous flowers.
Sepals began separating today.
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How old is that ‘tree’?
As I believe you know, banana plants are monocots that grow from corms – a kind of bulb.
In this picture you see on the right the stump of the plant that bloomed in 2015, in the center the base of the current plant, and on the left a “pup” sprouting from a corm produced by the current plant. In summer of 2015, the current plant was the size of the pup on the left.
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Today there are six “hands” of “fingers” showing … you can see 3 of them in this photo.
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Eight hands …
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First hand of male flowers.
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After producing the female fruits the stem will continue to grow for a few feet (or yards !), producing hundreds of male flowers. That energy can be redirected into fruit by clipping off the stem 4-6 inches past the last fruit.
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