Ito-basho banana plant cluster

The 'Ito-basho' banana plant, in the Musaceae family, was generally used to provide fibers for textiles. There is a saying on Amami that unattractive women had to have a whole mountain of these plants (called 'basha-yama) to be able to wed; in the island dialect, a slang for 'unattractive woman' is 'basha-yama,' presumably originating from this saying.