2eleven

Hey folks,

Maybe someone here can help me identify a mystery banana which I inherited from my sister-in-law. The original plant was bought from the famous but now defunct La Conchita Seaside Banana Garden in California. My sister-in-law doesn't remember the exact variety, but says they were some kind of Lady Finger - possibly just sold to her as a "Lady Finger" with no other designation, though she doesn't really remember.

I got a flower on one of them recently and thought it might help in identification. Unfortunately, this flower occurred after severe winds stripped the plant of all of its leaves, so the bananas will never mature. The fruit is about 2.5 inches in length, but who knows how big they would have grown if they could have matured. I've uploaded some photos - the originals are high res so clicking on these a couple of times to bring up the original might help in identifying them.

The flower:


The immature fruit:


A close up of the immature fruit:


The underside of a leaf:


The pups:


Another view of the pups:


And the whole plant:


Hopefully someone might recognize what kind of banana this is. Thanks!

John

island cassie

Wow - this looks very similar to one I am trying to identify that has just flowered - huge bud!! Lets keep in touch over this one!

ron_mcb

how tall does this thing usually get?? do the red leaves pretty much vanish as the pups become adult?? the flower must have came right after the plant left dormacy,i dont see many adult leaves,and the mother is covered in dead sheath that hides the color of the p stem.

you will need a few detectives alright.

__________________
naw mek smaddi ditate fi yuh. naw wan gwan a pawty yuh naggo.

Jack Daw

I don't know about the large plant, but the pup looks almost 100% like my Musa 'Dwarf Brazilian' pup, or maybe it is some very closely related banana.
Anyway, good luck identifing this one, it's a nice plant...

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Thnx to Marcel, Ante, Dr. Chiranjit Parmar and Francesco for the plants I've received.



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2eleven

I've only had this one fruit, and it is about 4.5 feet. There is another that looks like it is about to fruit (bulging of the ps), and it is also at about 4.5 feet right now. Yes, the red vanishes once the pups get older except for the spine of the leaf on the underside - it keeps a red hue. There are no adult leaves on the one which flowered because it flowered after a severe winds and heat stripped it of all its leaves. :-(

John

2eleven

Yeah I have some dwarf brazilians and noticed the similarity as well. I'm pretty sure it isn't a dwarf brazilian though - a few years back my sister-in-law brought us fruit from one of these and I don't recall it being much like a brazilian - they were sweeter and without the acidic tang if I recall. It was a while back, so I could be remembering wrong though.

John