I do grow both types here at my farm and can distinguish between them visually, but I'm no expert. The article you link to at
Bananas Quarterly is very misleading since they have lumped lacatan in with morado, which is another banana altogether. What is known here as lakatan and lacatan do not have red skinned fruit or red pseudostems. The lakatan is practically a Philippines national treasure and is sometimes referred to as the "native" variety; lacatan, while obvious to many as being of another genome, is cultivated as more of a commercial crop since the plants are larger and bear more and larger fruits (they closely resemble the cavendish I'm used to in the US supermarkets). When I first became interested in growing them commercially for inter-island export, I was at first concerned that they might not taste quite the same, since this is the reason for wanting to grow them and sell them, filipinos desire to purchase their beloved lakatan, and I don't blame them; they are delicious! But, the flavor of both types is indistinguishable. I've had many filipinos around my island where many native lakatan are grown, look at the fruit of the lacatan and pronounce that they aren't the same (which is true), but in the major cities where they cannot grow bananas the market determines that they are inter-changeable, which of course leads to much confusion!
