Re: Musa basjoo
I agree they are definitely not M. bajsoo, but don't believe they are M. balbisiana.
It's hard to tell from the photos, but from the growth habit of the plants and the few blurry bunches I can see they appear to be some type of M. acuminata or a hybrid with a species like M. ornata or something closely related.
Can you post some close up photos of a fruit bunch and flowers?
I was quite excited at first actually at the prospect of someone collecting M. basjoo seed from cultivated plants. There is some evidence the commonly available clones in the horticultural trade may be sterile, which is not at all surprising if true as many are produced from tissue culture with assumably no consideration to maintaining fertility or any true-to-typeness as somaclonal mutations occur. Growing new plants from seed could give a reset of sorts to the overall integrity of the plants.
Even though that's not the case here, I'm still curious to figure out exactly what the plants are. Do you have any records of where they came from?
In any case, fresh banana seeds often don't have nearly as hard a time germinating as ones which have been dried and stored for a time (as are most seeds hobby growers are working with), so I wouldn't be too surprised if you get a lot more seedlings than you think you will.
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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.
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