Ensete superbum (seeds labeled as Ensete perrieri)
 

I ordered 100 seeds of Ensete perrieri from RPS and they arrived in June 2007.
The seeds were large, hard like a stone, and covered in pockmarks. About 1/3 of them germinated and were kept in containers until April/May 2008 when I started planting them in the ground. Here are a few photos taken today (8 months after planting). Is anyone else growing these? Can anyone confirm if they are E. perrieri?

This was the size of the plants in Spring 2008 before planting in the ground


8 months later (the same plant shown above)


Here are a few photos I took today. I planted these along a hillside and I am not providing any supplemental watering during the dry season (December to April). During the rainy season (May to November) we get approx 150-200 inches of rain per year which means the soil stays wet for 7 months or more of the year. Some of these plants are more shaded than others.

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My smallest plant (shaded by a large clump of dessert bananas).


and the top view

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The descriptions I have read say that the midribs on E. perrieri are yellow, yet on most of these plants, the yellow fades to dark orange or light red in the middle of the leaf and then hold the color through to the tip.

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Jeff, thank you for clarifying that. When I get one to sprout, I will be ecstatic! When I finally get an ingens to sprout, THAT will be a cause for a huge celebration!!!
I am so glad that you posted these E. perrieri photos - they give me renewed hope and energy.

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Glad you liked them Scot! I wish I could find someone growing these who could confirm their id. There is very little information or photos available on the internet to see what these look like at different stages of growth.

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Whatever they are, they are lovely.

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Yo Jeff,
Your post is truly an absolute inspiration! :goteam:

Mucho gracias! This is something I have yet to get my hands on as I was late on the orders from rps. I will definitely get a lot 100 sds the next time they offer it. Currently I have loads of fun with 50+ seedlings of the Ensete livingstonianum which I germinated from rps.
Please keep us posted of their progress.:ha:

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Well, they certainly look a lot more like Ensete superbum than I would have thought. I thought that E. perrieri was a bit taller, like E. glaucum. You'll know when they flower. Excellent pics though! Thanks for posting them.

Frank

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Thanks everyone.

Hi Frank, E. perrieri is supposed to be closely related to E. ventricosum. The only difference (other than the flower) is that the mid-ribs are supposed to be yellow/green instead of red/purple like ventricosum. My plants definitely do not have the dark red/purple color in the mid-rib but rather start off green at the base and then fade to yellow and then orange part way up the leaf. I don't know much about E. superbum so it's hard for me to make a comparison. I tried growing a couple different kinds of Ensete in Florida but they always died on me so I gave up on them.

These plants still may get taller. The first year they gained some height but mainly the base expanded and got really wide on each of them. I was hoping that once the base enlarged like that, they would start growing taller. I guess only time will tell.

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Excellent work Jeff, very good photos! About this kind of really very few information.

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Thanks Andrei, it will be interesting to watch these plants mature. I will photograph them periodically and keep everyone updated on their progress.

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A night shot

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Awesome!

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Stunning! From the photos I have seen, the E. glaucum and E. perrieri blossoms look quite similar too. Of course, I don't have a trained eye yet.
I really hope they are E. perrieri.

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Awesome photos, Jeff! Growth rate is phenomenal as well.

I also like the heliconia blooming in the background of one of your photos. Thanks for sharing.

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Like Brent said the growth rate in such a short time is amazing. I have tried a few times with seed but so far no good.

Some seeds on U.S Ebay at the moment.
EXOTIC ENSETE PERRIERI MADAGASCAR BANANA TREE SEEDS WOW on eBay, also Plants, Seeds Bulbs, Gardening Plants, Yard, Garden Outdoor Living, Home Garden (end time 15-Feb-09 23:23:47 GMT)

Bit pricey though.

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Mark, I think it applies to all Ensete grown in the right condition. My first sp is the E superbum. The moment it took off, I get 1 new leaf everyday! Yes, 1 per day! I was of course baby-ing it like crazy, 3-4 times watering daily and fert every wk or more.

Sine then, I have germinated E ventricosum, E glaucum and E livingstonianum. I grow them in very porous burnt top soil. Within 1 month of germn, I started feed them sheep dung processed fert from NZ every week. They are now giving me 1 new leaf every 2 days. I guess they really crave heat and water and lots of food.

They all took an average of 12 days to germinate at a day temp of approx 100F and night at low 90F. :ha:

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Mark, thanks for the link. It seems odd that this ebay seller is using the photos from the RPS website and is claiming that this is the very first introduction into cultivation. Toby offered seeds almost two years ago.

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What exactly did you do to germinate yours?

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Hi Jarred, I soaked the seeds in water for almost a week (maybe a little less) changing the water daily. At the time I received the seeds, I didn't have any germinating medium on hand (I now use ground coconut fiber but I couldn't find it at the time) so I put some regular bagged soil into one of those large rectangular disposable food storage containers, laid the seeds on top, sprayed them with some water, and snapped the lid on. The container kept it moist inside and within a few months they started germinating. I didn't provide bottom heat, they were exposed to normal fluctuating temperatures in my house from about 70 degrees at night to around 84 during the day. I don't have air conditioning at my house, but I have many screened areas to keep the air moving through.

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Thanks Jeff, appreciate the info!

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I think fresh seed is a big part of the key here, I just couldn't get them to germinate (have last batch of 20 seeds in at the moment).

great pics, love to see it confirmed as Perrieri, then maybe you can sell us all some nice fresh seed :ha:

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I think I have at least 10 now planted in the ground. Once they flower, I would be happy to share seeds with anyone, whether we can confirm the id or not. If all 10 eventually flower, there should be plenty of seeds. :2722:

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Count me in, no matter what it is! I just like the plant a whole lot!!!!

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Ooooh..me! Me! Me! LOL.

All kidding aside, I can't recall reading whether this Ensete has basal hermaphrodite flowers or not. I know quite a few of them do, so chances are good that this one will also, meaning that you should get seed with just one flower blooming. And with ten flowers blooming, you should have LOTS of seed! Yes, please count me in for a couple hundred of them...if you end up with more than you know what to do with, that is.

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LOL, I don't know how long it will take them to flower. It may be another year or more. But when the time comes, I'll be happy to share them.

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A couple hundred? Sheesh, bigdog what are you growing there, a plantation? LOL (just kidding, I know your thoughts on how many seeds it takes to get one to germinate)

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I understand what you mean, out of 100 seeds I only got around 25 or so to germinate. I can't remember exactly how many, but it was around that amount. To be honest, I didn't really take very good care of them for the first 6 months - they sat in heavy shade under a tree and got very stretched out. Some of them were weak and died off, others got too wet during the rainy season and rotted. They responded much better when I moved them into a sunny area. I also gave a few of them away to friends and that left me with about 10 which are all planted out now. So out of 100 seeds, I am left with 10 plants. You need a good quantity of seed to end up with just a few plants.

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The operative words were "got around 25 or so to germinate"!!! We would be happy just to have a few germinate at all. Out of 150 seeds, I have not had one germinate. So I may need a few thousand! (joking of course, but with fresh seeds I would hope to get a few to germinate out of 50)
I am hauling out the plastic containers and regular old dirt this time around. It seems to work better than all of this sterile stuff we have tried.

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Scot, I'm sure that fresh seeds would guarantee better results. I don't know how old the seeds were that I got from RPS, but I ordered them right after they were first offered (with a large palm seed order!) and they must have been pretty fresh for me to have that many germinate. All the seedlings popped up at the same time a few months after sowing them. Then no more for the next six months and I figured the rest of the seeds were duds so I tossed them down a hillside near my shadehouse. I dropped a couple seeds onto my potting table and a couple months later one germinated, just laying there on the table among a little spilled soil and plastic bags! I planted it out during this past rainy season. I forgot about this one when I posted the photos of my larger ones.

This photo was taken a few months ago, it's gotten fatter since then.

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For what it's worth,I just got my E.Perrieri seeds from Mother Natures Garden store(Jeff posted the ebay link). They advertised 30 seeds, sent 72 along with some free M. Manii and some agave seeds. If successful I'll post a follow up with a few:woohoonaner:'s along with it!

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Bob, great to hear you got some seeds. I hope that a lot of them germinate for you! Keep us posted.

Oh, and I didn't post the link, Mark did. I just commented on it :)

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I took a few more photos of my largest E. perrieri today.

Close up


As this plant grows larger, the midribs are much more yellow. It seems to be losing the orange/red color.

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I got a bunch of those seeds and have yet to get one to germinate. I have also placed several into embryo rescue, but so far, none have really shown any signs of growth.

I don't know how old those seeds are, but they may have been from the originals sold by RPS 2 years ago.

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Scot, you are probably right about the seeds. I can't imagine there is ongoing seed collection in Madagascar for this banana.

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We have had E. perrieri seeds a couple of times, the last time was August or September 07. We have some plants growing at a friends farm in Mada now and I hope seed quality will improve this way from the wild collected seeds when we get the first harvest. The species is easy to tell apart from the seeds as they are distinctly warty, not smooth.

Best, TOBY

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See my posting in Seed Germination in the thread, "Trying again with Ensete perrieri"

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Thanks, but I am not sure what you are trying to say there?

Best, TOBY

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[quote=Toby;63264]We have had E. perrieri seeds a couple of times, the last time was August or September 07. We have some plants growing at a friends farm in Mada now and I hope seed quality will improve this way from the wild collected seeds when we get the first harvest. The species is easy to tell apart from the seeds as they are distinctly warty, not smooth.

Best, TOBY
QUOTE]

Hi Toby,
So any idea when RPS will offer the sds of the E perrieri again? I missed them the last time.

Tog

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Hi Tog,

I really hope we will get some plants to flower this year.

Best, TOBY

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[quote=Tog Tan;63319]Toby, I missed them too and the 150 seeds I got must have been too old as the embryos were all dried up. I sure would like to get a few hundred seeds myself.
Thanks!

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I finally found the photo of the day this Ensete was planted. Here it is right after I planted it on 5/28/08. They had just finished construction of two new bedrooms for the Bali House (a vacation rental home that I manage). This was the first plant that I planted in this new bed. There were some crotons that were already growing there, but not much else. I have since filled it with all kinds of palms, bananas, Ti plants and other ornamentals.

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I took an updated photo of my largest E. perrieri today. Here it is exactly 10 months after planting. A couple weeks ago, I trimmed about 8-10 leaves from the bottom. They were shading my palms and other plants and I wanted some air circulation under there. The plant is holding about 20 leaves right now and the newest ones are more than 8 feet long.

The other 9 plants have not had any watering during our dry season. We have only had a few light showers in the last 2 months and everything is very dry here. The ones with no supplemental watering are now putting out very stunted leaves and appear to be going into dormancy. I'll get some photos of them soon.





And one last photo taken from the balcony of the house.

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Jeff, I have said it before and I'll say it again, those are just gorgeous! Still trying to get just one stinking seed to germinate - grrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!

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Thanks Scot!

Here is what the others look like. These were planted in an area where they get no supplemental water or care. The large one (that I have been posting photos of) was planted in a raised bed of good loose soil and it gets watered about once a week. These only get rainfall, and we haven't had much at all in the last two and a half months. I'm thinking that they will perk up and start growing again once the rainy season starts next month (or hopefully sooner!)

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I just re-read this part of your initial post on this thread. This corroborates the description of E perrieri seeds that Frank and I have mentioned, if you mean warty on the surface.

Thanks for the additional pics, too.

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GREAT PICTURES! Those are some stellar-looking plants! I don't really know much about that variety of Ensete, but they look very striking! Thanks for sharing!

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Thanks Bryan! I don't know much about this particular Ensete either. I ordered the seeds so I could trial them here in Costa Rica and see how they would perform as an ornamental plant. So far so good, as long as they receive regular water.

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Those pictures are killing me! I just have to get one somehow. Maybe Tog can germinate some for me. I am sending the rest of my seeds to him.
On another note, I just had 4 sprouts of M. violascens come up!

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.......if you've ever sent banana seeds to a freind overseas so that he could germinate them for you!