Quote:
Originally Posted by bigdog
Yes, it does get confusing! Seed dealers use Musa x paradisiaca when they have no idea what it is I guess. It means absolutely nothing when labeled as such. It could be anything, a wild species or a hybrid. The Musa x paradisiaca plants that I have seen in person look very much like a Musa acuminata type.
The perception out there is that Musa paradisiaca is a plantain, while Musa sapientum is a dessert banana. Gabe is correct, these names really don't mean anything in modern Musa taxonomy. However, they used to be officially recognized names, so it is difficult to completely get rid of them.
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What gets even more confusing, is that in parts of Africa and Asia they have officially reverted back to these names, refering to plantains as M. paradisiaca and desserts as M. sapientum, which I suppose makes it easy for farmers (which was the intention), but for researchers its still useless (in my opinion).
Also, the "x" part seems most useless to me, which stems from the general perception (or rather misconception) of the origin of edible bananas. Often you will read something like "all modern bananas are derived from hybrids of two original wild species"...which can be true...sometimes, but what is not always clearly stated is that many come from just one of those species (Musa acuminata), so many are not even interspecific hybrids with M. balbisiana. Looking just at those which have only M. acuminata blood in them, the origins become even foggier. Some are derived from a single subspecies of M. acuminata, really not even that different from the wild form, while many others are offspring from multiple subspecies within M. acuminata, being of complex intraspecific origins. So even if, the genomic composition of a cultivar is strictly in the M. acuminata arena, it is still very likely derived from hybrids between previously existing primitive landraces and other wild M. acuminata subspeices in the area.
It is not often mentioned (though I am not alone in this), but it is my belief that edible bananas originated from many different sources (fe'i banana are proof that the phenomenon had to have happened twice, at the very, very least), and it wasn't just one plant that set it all of it. It could have been tens, hundreds, or likely thousands of separate occurrences of parthenocarpacy, sterility and hybridization (in a plethora of combinations) that has led to the diversity we see in edible bananas today (which is still ever-changing the same way it has been). Add on top of that thousands of years of random mutation and selection and you can start to see the mess.
So there's my bit on banana taxonomy for the day
