First, let's explore the term "banana spider." Originally it meant any spider liable to be transported in bunches of bananas. By far the commonest banana spider in this sense is the huntsman spider, Heteropoda venatoria (below, with eggs). The name is also used for any other tropical spider found in banana shipments. Many current writers misapply the name to large orbweaving spiders with no banana association at all, apparently in the belief that their abdomens are somehow banana-like.

None of these spiders lays its eggs in flowers. Flowers change so fast that they would be poor places for eggs. Huntsman spiders guard their egg sacs in a leaf nest, as shown. Many other species found on banana plants do much the same. On rare occasions some spider may place an egg sac on the outside of an already-grown banana. Such an object would be hard for even the hungriest consumer to miss. (In March 2015, a panicked banana-buyer in Wales misidentified just such an egg sac, harmless of course, as "the world's deadliest spider," setting off another foolish media feeding frenzy).