Ensete ventricosum, commonly known as enset or ensete, Ethiopian banana, Abyssinian banana, pseudo-banana, false banana and wild banana, is a species of flowering plant in the banana family Musaceae. The only country where the domesticated form of the plant is cultivated is Ethiopia, where it provides the staple food for approximately 20 million people. The name Ensete ventricosum was first published in the Kew Bulletin 1947, p. 101. Its synonyms include Musa arnoldiana De Wild., Musa ventricosa Welw. and Musa ensete J. F. Gmelin. In its wild form, it is native to the eastern edge of the Great African Plateau, extending northwards from South Africa through Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania to Ethiopia, and west to the Congo, being found in high-rainfall forests on mountains, and along forested ravines and streams.

In 1769, the celebrated Scottish traveller James Bruce first sent a description of a plant common in the marshes around Gondar in Abyssinia (a historical region which includes Ethiopia), pronouncing it to be "no species of Musa" and wrote that its local name was "ensete". In 1853, the British Consul at Mussowah sent some seeds to Kew Gardens, mentioning that their native name was ansett. Kew did not make the connection to bananas until they germinated and grew in size.

Bruce also discussed the plant's place in the mythology of Egypt and pointed out that some Egyptian carvings depict the goddess Isis sitting among the leaves of what was thought to be a banana plant, a plant native to Southeast Asia and not known in Ancient Egypt.

Like the banana, Ensete ventricosum is a large non-wood plant—a large monocarpic evergreen perennial—up to 6 m (20 ft) tall. The tallest to be reported was 13 m (43 ft). It has a stout pseudostem of tightly overlapping leaf bases, and large banana-like leaf blades of up to 5 m (16 ft) tall by 1 m (3 ft 3 in) wide; leaves up to 6 m (20 ft) long and up to 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) wide have been reported. The flowers, which occur only once from the centre of the plant at the end of that plant's life, are in large pendant thyrses up to 3 m (9.8 ft) long, bearing 30 or more "hands" of young bananas which are covered by large pink bracts. The roots are an important foodstuff, but the fruits are inedible and have hard, black, rounded seeds.

The Latin specific epithet ventricosum means "with a swelling on the side, like a belly".

The most common pest that threatens enset is caused by the Cataenococcus enset, which is a root mealybug. C. enset feeds on the roots and corm of the enset plant, which leads to slower growth and easier uprooting. Even though enset can be infested at all age stages, the highest risk is between the second and fourth growth years. The dispersion of the mealybug occurs through multiple vectors: First, the larvae can crawl short distances before settling down; adult mealybugs tend to move only after being disturbed. Second, mealybug-ant symbiotic relationships can be linked to enset infestation and protect and even transport the mealybug over short distances. In return, they feed on the mealybug honeydew. Third, flooding events can transport the mealybug over longer distances and reach enset plants. However, the main transport vectors are unclean working tools and the usage of already infected suckers. This means that the best way to get rid of the bug and to limit its propagation is to uproot the plant and burn it. In addition, the fields can be kept free of plant growth for a month since the mealybug can survive up to only three weeks without plant material.

Other pests include nematodes, spider mites, aphids, mole-rats, porcupines and wild pigs. The latter erodes the corm and pseudostem. As for the nematodes, there are two predominant species: there are the root lesion nematodes (Pratylenchus goodeyi) and the root-knot nematodes (Meloidogyne sp.), and their appearance stands in connection with bacterial wilt. Pratylenchus goodeyi creates lesion on the corm and roots, which can lead to cavities up to 2 cm (0.79 in) and characteristic purple colouring around the cavities. The nematode infestation leads to the easy uprooting of the affected plants. Crop rotation can counteract high nematode infestations.

The enset plant can be subject to multiple diseases that threaten its use in agriculture. The most well known of them is the infection by the bacteria Xanthomonas campestris pathovar Musacerum which creates bacterial wilt, also known as borijje and wol'a by the Koore people. The first observation of this disease was reported by Yirgou and Bradbury in 1968. The manifestation of the bacterial wilt is taking place in the apical leaves that will wilt then dry and finally lead to the drying of the whole plant. The only way to avoid the spreading of the disease is in uprooting, burning and burying plants as well as in applying strict control of the knives and tools used to harvest and treat the plants.