Thanks Gabe, you have confirmed my suspicions I have never agreed with connection between basjoo and formosana, I always thought the connection was brought about purely on the visual basis of the flowers looking similar, I thought geographically the two species are to far apart without at least the presence of an intermediate to link the two species together and make the suggestion plausible! I’m not convinced with link between formosana and itinerans too I wouldn’t be surprised if formosana wasn’t a distinct species in its own right, like basjoo, although I see there is now some suggestions that basjoo may be connected to the itinerans group.
I was reading somewhere and cant remember were! That a long time ago wild basjoo had a wider distribution in China, wider then it does today and wasn’t limited to Sichuan and a couple of neighbouring province’s so I’m surprised there hasn’t bean more diversity in basjoo documented up to now.
Then I saw this
Banana species from cool climate of China, yellow flower
If the pictures are true and they are of the yellow forest banana and its flower, then I think it could very well be a variant or subspecies of basjoo, I would be interested in other peoples opinions of the pictures. The thing that strikes me is basjoo is a big mat-forming banana, but its obvious looking at the pictures the yellow forest banana isn’t, Mark Hall has had this banana for three years or so and he said his hasn’t produced any pups in that time, something not typical of Basjoo a plant that produces pups freely.
My suggested link between the two is based on the picture of the flower but you have to agree it does look very similar to basjoo!! It would be cool if it were a subspecies or variant of basjoo.
Tony