Musa is one of three genera in the family Musaceae. The genus includes 83 species of flowering plants producing edible bananas and plantains (also known as cooking bananas), and fiber (abacá), used to make paper and cloth. Though they grow as high as trees, banana and plantain plants are not woody and their apparent "stem" is made up of the bases of the huge leaf stalks. Thus, they are technically gigantic herbaceous plants.