Family: Heliconiaceae

Habit: Terrestrial herbs to 4 m tall, rhizomatous, clumped or scattered.

Main axis: Stems sheathed by overlapping petioles.

Leaves: Leaves simple, distichously arranged along stem; petioles often long; lamina upright, tearing along the lateral veins, elliptic or lanceolate, the base sometimes asymmetric, the margins entire, the midrib prominent, the secondary veins pinnate-parallel.

Inflorescence: Inflorescence a series of few-flowered cymes subtended by colorful, keeled bracts arranged in one plane or spirally around the main axis; the bracts of showy colors - reds, yellows, and pinks - and attractive to hummingbirds.

Flowers: Flowers bisexual, zygomorphic; tepals in two whorls of 3, the outer tepals dividing at maturity; stamens 5, exserted, staminode 1; ovary inferior, 3-locular.

Fruit: Fruit a drupe, often triangular in cross-section, blue to blue-black at maturity.

Seeds: Seeds one per fruit.

Notes: Family segregated from the Musaceae.