Musella lasiocarpa is a great plant for a tropical effect in cooler climate zones. It is not a true banana, but a banana relative, and has a smaller, shrub-like form. It can produce a large, lotus-shaped, waxy yellow flower that will remain in bloom for six months.

Chinese Yellow Banana comes from high altitudes (to a frosty 2800 m) in the Yunnan Province in China. Botanists with a working knowledge of Yunnan and Musella think that it may be extinct in the wild and maintained only in cultivation by farmers in Yunnan and Sichuan. Its flower is known as the Golden Lotus Flower, a sacred flower in local Buddhism.

The maximum height of the Musella lasiocarpa is only about 1,5 m, half of which is a very stout, conical trunk, which is then topped by a crown of handsome, slightly glaucous, broad leaves. Leaves held rather stiffly upright, glaucous green with reddish-brown margins. From early age, the rhizome of Chinese Yellow Banana produces many suckers. The inflorescence, which is big and bright yellow, appears in its second or third year if it is grown from seed. Flower grows upright at the top of the trunk. As the inflorescence grows in size, tiny bananas begin to appear under each bract, which curls back to reveal the fruits. Unfortunately inedible, the 5 cm long bananas each contain dozens of small, shiny, brown-black seeds.

The seeds of Musella lasiocarpa requires cool stratification (about 4°C, more than 6 weeks) but then germinates easily, and subsequent seedling growth is, as you might expect, very fast. Musella appreciates heavy watering and feeding and a place in full sun. It will flourish in all climates from cool tropical down to temperate, where it will be found to be root hardy, enduring even cold winters with its underground rhizome, just like well known hardy bananas. It also makes a perfect conservatory plant.

In landscape, may be used as an accent plant, or in front of the long banana trees as a second line shrub. Also can be used in groups. In cold areas like as Ankara, plant should be kept in a container, and not to leave outside at winter.