southlatropical

Certainly the thickness of the p-stem will determine weather or not it can survive a freeze regardless of how hardy it is. M. bordelon, M. zebrina, M. Ornata, M. Red Iholene all froze to the ground over winter and are coming back from the rhizome. They were all small plants with none of them having a p-stem more than 1.5" in diameter. The big (possibly Orinoco) banana plants in my back yard are growing back from last years stalks. Banana leaves are not frost hardy. The p-stem is made up of leaf sheaths. The outer sheaths are killed during a hard freeze but remain as insulation for the layers below. This applies of course only to an extent. If it gets cold enough to freeze the p-stem all the way through then it does not matter how thick it is.

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