Musa kattuvazhana K.C.Jacob, the only indigenous wild banana growing naturally in the evergreen forests of the Western Ghats, was first taxonomically documented in a monograph on Madras Bananas by Jacob (1952). Jacob described the species based on the plant found at Suryampat, Kalpatta, and N. Malabar regions in India, and later attempted to introduce the taxon in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, but he noticed an unusual erect inflorescence in the plant. Jacob submitted the type at MADRAS herbarium, Coimbatore (Madras Herbarium No. 88134). In the same year, Nayar (1952), from the Singampatti hill range of Western Ghats in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, reported Musa banksii (F.Muell) var. singampatti T.G.Nayar based on the occurrence of basal female flowers and irregular angulate seeds. The name fell into obscurity and apparently might have evaded the observation of Jacob. Simmonds (1956, 1960) reported that the basal flowers are functionally female not hermaphrodite in M. banksii var. singampatti, and suggested its close affinity with Musa acuminata ssp. burmannica N.W.Simmonds, which was further supported by De Langhe & Devreux (1960). Karthikeyan et al. (1989) enumerated the members of the family Musaceae in India wherein M. Kattuvazhana was listed. Hakkinen & Vare (2008) also supported the interpretation of Simmonds and pointed out that the variation certainly does not represent an infraspecific taxon of M. banksii and suggested it could be either a distinct species or perhaps a variety of Musa flaviflora N.W.Simmonds, which, however, Singh et al. (2001) and Uma et al. (2005) did not accept, stating the presence of seeds. Later, Joe et al. (2016) taxonomically described M. kattuvazhana from Idukki and Thrissur districts of Western Ghats in Kerala. Joe et al. derived M. acuminata ssp. burmannica, and M. banksii var. singampatti as its synonyms based on the morphological data from the literature, and classified the taxon as critically endangered species under IUCN. The reduction of M. banksii var. singampatti as a synonym of M. kattuvazhana was accepted by Govaerts and compiled in the database of World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP, 2020). Hareesh et al. (2017) reported the occurrence of M. kattuvazhana in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands which seems to be misidentified