ID help!
 

Hi. I have a banana tree that was planted 3.5 years ago, when I did not have any special interest in bananas yet. It was bought from a local nursersy. Here in my island (and in Greece generally) the exact botanical name of plants is almost never writen on labels, instead evrything is "banana" or "apple" or "palm" etc, so I had no way to know the exact banana type I got. At that time I bought it for the very green leaf and the tropical look. First summer I had a late bloom with tiny bananas that never got bigger because of a sudden brake caused by a strong wind. Next summer a I had another bunch of tiny bananas, again they remained small without getting a proper size until winter came and rotted. Last summer with increased watering and fertilizing, tiny bananas came up earlier, remained small and died again in winter. At the end of this winter I already have a flower with bananas, and decided to post some pictures so may someone can help me ID this banana. The tree is not at its best after a strong winter, and I already have trimmed the damaged leaves. New leaves now start to pop up. So you must ID it by the fruit and flower only. May be in 2 weeks I can post some leave photos, if they can help.
Also, almost the same story happens to my brother's in law banana tree, bought from the same store.
In our island I have seen banana tree making bananas in proper size.
I'm wondering if our bananas are decorative only..
Here are the links for the photos:
http://www.aegina.net/bananas/b1.jpg
http://www.aegina.net/bananas/b2.jpg
http://www.aegina.net/bananas/b3.jpg

Thanks.

Re: ID help!
 

From the closeness of the flower to the banana bunch, I'd say it is a Cavendish. There are several bananas in this general group, and the height of the plant, size of container, and appearance of those pups we can see around it might help w/ the identification. Frankly, a number of people on this site know a lot more about bananas than I do, so I'll be watching to see what they say.
By the way, which island are you on? The Greek islands I've been to are all drier than where I am, but I think Delos and the islands in that general area (the Cicades?) were drier than Crete.

Re: ID help!
 

It seems to be fairly tall, maybe 10-12' of trunk? The banana shape definitely looks like something in the cavendish family.

Re: ID help!
 

The height is between 2.5 - 3m (8'-10').
My concern is to know if this is going to have any eatable fruit in the future, as it occupies a valuable south facing location where I could put another named banana from the ones I have now in pots (Ice Cream, Dwarf Cavendish, Pitogo etc).
If it's a Cavendish, why did not produce any fruit? Is it a matter of a disease or deficiency? This one gives pups all summer, and I remove the old stems that have flowered.
My island is Aegina, and is 15 miles from Pireaus-Athens. Temps very rarely fall below 2 Celsius, once in 2-3 years, and then only for 1-2 nights. Humidity in winter is between 40-70%, and summer is hot-dry (except early mornings that we have high humidity for some hours).
I'm in dillema about to remove or not this banana..

Re: ID help!
 

It did make fruit. That is why it looks like a cavendish type. Many things affect fruit size and quantity of fruit: variety, weather, water, fertilizer, and stress (particularly just before flowering), and possibly the affect of all of these on the pup when it was small.. Stress can come from poor water or nutrition, from removing pups and disturbing roots in the months prior to flowering.

Having said all that, there are other varieties which are better producers, such as GoldFinger, Sweetheart, Misi Luki, FHIA17, the Namwahs, etc. I have not had a Cavendish type that was a stellar producer (Dwarf, Williams, Valery, etc) though Valery has done the best. Also, in general, in my experience, the taller varieties produce better than the dwarf or shorter varieties.

Re: ID help!
 

I wish I could find them.. Unless you send me some ;) ..lol..

Re: ID help!
 

Definitely it's not an ornamental.