Tropicallvr

I ordered a banana called M.laterita, and when it arrived on it's tag it said "bronze banana", as well as upright banana, and Musa laterita.
Is M.ornata bronze the same as laterita?
Kyle

Zac in NC

Yep. They are the same thing. Gabe can give more details, but that is what I recall him telling me.


Zac

bigdog

I've heard that also, Kyle. Also, if you look on the Musaceae website HERE, and scroll down near the bottom, it lists them as synonyms.

tropicalkid

Yep, they are the same. Keep in mind that it's one of the few varieties that produces pups moderately and very distant from the mom. If you have multiple fruit bunches fruiting with little difference in days between them, they can cross pollinate and you can get fruit to develop from one of those upright bunches.

Carlos

Tropicallvr

Thanks for the info everyone.
I think Musa laterita sounds like the better name of the two, so I guess I'll use it instead, and maybe it is a species so that is correct anyways. Don't really know though.

estan

Thanks for clearing that up. I saw this banana at Lancetilla Bot. Gds. in Honduras and thought it was M.ornata "bronze". Then I ordered M. laterita from Transpacific after seeing the "upright" banana in north west Ohio. I never noticed the upright nature of the leaves in Hond. I had one Hond. seed sprout last year and the foot high plant died over winter but more seeds germinated and died this spring. I now have one more sprouted seed which was in the pot for over a year. The mail order plant is several feet tall now.

Now I understand why it was mixed through the Heliconia and Ginger plantings.

Gabe15

Yes they are the same, but M. laterita is the only correct name.

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Steve in France

Well that's good cus I wanted a Bronze one and now am on a promise for Spring. So the various plants called Musa Ornata are not all just colour variations on one Musa but a group of ornamental flowering Musa lumped together ? Gabe I have that African Red from you that is doing well , just forming three pups and the central plant is about six feet tall in total , what's it's full name ?
Later
Steve

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Gabe15

It is always mixed up in the trade, and pretty much all new Rhodochlamys (and sometimes Callimusa species too) plants are given the name Musa oranta 'whatever', I think because M. ornata is a popular plant, and catchy too (ornata=ornate, ornamental), so they began calling everything ornata (even though some already had valid scientific names long before they went into cultivation).

Musa ornata in reality is just one plant, it has green fruit and a pale pinkish bud, it however is actually an interspecific hybrid of M. velutina and M. flaviflora, however it is still treated as a valid species because it acts like a species, has wild populations and all that stuff (perfectly capable of true to type sexual reproduction).

Most others are hybrids of unknown origin, but they are not wild species any many are sterile due to their hybrid nature. The only other common ones that can confidently identified as a valid wild species are Musa laterita (known as ornata 'Bronze'), Musa gracilis (known as ornata 'Leyte White'), Musa siamensis ((not official) known as ornata 'Thai Gold'). There are also a few others but its hard to say exactly what they would be called in the nursery trade, as mentioned before everything is really mixed up but Musa rosea and Musa rosacea are most likely out there under the wrong name. There are also other species that are generally named correctly (such as velutina, mannii and rubinea(not official)) and there are yet others that are still not in cultivation.

Musa 'African Red' is the correct name since it is a hybrid of unknown origin, definetly not a wild species.

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Steve in France

Perfect , Thanks Gabe , what would we do without you .
The one I don't have yet is Musa gracilis 'Leyte White' , so there is a pup going somewhere let me know.
Later
Steve

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Gabe15

Musa gracilis is a very rare plant to find in the US, the 'Leyte White' was only offered by a few nurseries and I haven't seen it around for awhile. It is actually a Callimusa species, so a completely different plant from all of the Rhodochlamys.

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