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Old 09-08-2008, 07:21 PM   #11 (permalink)
Gabe15
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Default Re: ornamental bananas?

M. paradisiaca doesn't exist, its a name for the type species that has been used to mean either any banana or just edible bananas in general, but it doesn't really matter since its rarely used correctly anymore. In the past at a certain time, nearly every single banana described (whether seeded or edible) was given the name "Musa paradisiaca subsp...or var...", but that system was very flawed and abandoned decades ago. Some plant and seed dealers seem to still refer to these very old and outdated papers as references for plant names. It should really only be used if you want to scientifically refer to all edible banana plants without naming a specific variety, but even if used correctly by an author, it seems to be rarely interpreted as intended. It gets a little confusing in some places like Africa, where for some regions to make it easy on the farmers, they instituted that all dessert bananas be referred to as M. sapientum and plantains as M. paradisiaca, but this is not how it used at all in the scientific community.

Read this for more info on use of the name Musa paradisiaca and Musa sapientum.
Musa paradisiaca


As for your plant, there are a couple of possibilities. Someone could have been growing it and never got fruit, or got fruit but it never matured or they otherwise just never ate it, and so assumed it was a purely ornamental banana. The only seeded (sometimes equated with being purely ornamental in the hobby side of things) banana that it might be is Musa balbisiana, but it really does look much more like an edible type, likely Musa 'Orinoco' as Taylor mentioned. Musa balbisiana has many different forms, so its sometimes hard to ID until it fruit as there are quite a few edible varieties that look very similar. Generally, unless a banana has very unique and distinct foliar traits, its very difficult to give a proper ID until it bears fruit.
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Last edited by Gabe15 : 09-08-2008 at 07:29 PM.
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