harveyc

I saw this posted on Facebook and had to sure. Dang impressive!

Photo reportedly taken during guided tour earlier this month: "trunks of the gargantuan Musa ingens, world's largest banana. Arfak Mountains, West Papua"

__________________

crazy banana

Wow. That looks insane.

Mark Dragt

You would have to be creative to overwinter one of those in my zone 8. Amazing plant. What does the fruit look like? Flower, leaves?

__________________
Mark's Banana Forest Paradise

harveyc

Don't really know, I'm assuming it does not produce edible fruit.

__________________

blownz281

Dude I want one!!!

luisport

__________________
Musa Rajapuri, D. Brazilian, D. Orinoco, Blue Java, Pisang Ceylon, Robusta, S. D. Cavendish, Da Jiao (Himalayan Fruit), D. Goldfinger, x Fruit, Himalayan Mountain, Williams

Mango Glenn, Red Ivory

Avocado Bacon, Stewart, Sir Prize, Ettinger, Pinkerton, Duke

Paw Paw Sunflower, Prima 1216, Potomac, KSU Atwood, Mango, Jerry's Big Girl, Al Horns, KSU Chapell

https://growingfruit.org/t/my-small-...-orchard/19936

luisport

Description:
The pseudo-stem can be 10-15 m high with a circumference at the base of the plant of 2 m.

The leaf sheath is waxy at the bottom and reddish tinted at the top.

The petioles are up to 60 cm long. The leaves are up to 5 m long and 1 m wide.

The inflorescence is enormous and hangs from a huge, smooth peduncle of 10 cm in diameter. It wears about 20 basal hands, each with 16-25 hermaphrodite flowers.

The banana bunch is big, very compact and weighs about 60 kg. The ripe bananas are about 18 cm long and 3-4 cm wide. The fruit is inedible. The seeds are smooth with an angular outline, very variable in shape, dark brown or black, 4-10 mm in diameter with a 2 mm deep hilum hole.

Produces few suckers.

__________________
Musa Rajapuri, D. Brazilian, D. Orinoco, Blue Java, Pisang Ceylon, Robusta, S. D. Cavendish, Da Jiao (Himalayan Fruit), D. Goldfinger, x Fruit, Himalayan Mountain, Williams

Mango Glenn, Red Ivory

Avocado Bacon, Stewart, Sir Prize, Ettinger, Pinkerton, Duke

Paw Paw Sunflower, Prima 1216, Potomac, KSU Atwood, Mango, Jerry's Big Girl, Al Horns, KSU Chapell

https://growingfruit.org/t/my-small-...-orchard/19936

sirmoebly

I am not a expert but is that photo real.
Something doesn't look right.

siege2050

I think I can get it under the house for winter lol

__________________

blownz281

Haha.

scottu

sorry but i need more than those pics to fall for that, please prove me wrong, and then tell me it's cold hardy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

__________________
Viva La Banana

robguz24

Anyone try getting this to fruit in a container?

__________________
My micro-farm

Stay on my Big Island banana farm cottage

Kegas76

Like an empty swimming pool?

siege2050

I would be scared to grow those anywhere even close to a house in a warmer climate lol, Timberrrrrrr.

__________________

Yuri Barros

OH............MY......................GOD...............

This is the best picture of Bananas I saw in my life.......................

Romul

It looks like Photoshop. In describing Musa ingens it is at the base of the trunk circumference of 2 meters. The circumference is equal to 2 × π × radius. 200:2:3.14 = 31.85 cm. Thus the diameter of the pseudo stem should be about 60 cm. In the photo right is a banana stem diameter of about 1.5 m. Compared with the growth of girls. Accordingly, the circumference is about 4.5 m. I have seen in India, bananas, whose pseudo-stem was 30-40 cm in diameter. The height of these bananas was 10-12 m. What should be the height of the banana stem with a diameter of 1.5 m?

harveyc

Markku has written me and he's familiar with the photographer. He is an expert in these species bananas and I am under the impression he found it credible.

__________________

druss

Jungle Forums • View topic - Got: Holy Grail Seeds, Musa ingens
Heres a thread gabe15 started a decade ago, there are some good pics, wonder how his went.

harveyc

I'm guessing the scale isn't entirely clear in this photo with the composition done in a manner to make the plants even more impressive. I imagine the women are standing much closer to the plant behind them than the one in front of them. The photographer specializes in exotic wildlife photography and studied in California but not based in Asia.

__________________

Gabe15

There could be some perspective tricks going on, but I agree in that I don't think there is any reason to doubt the photo is real, M. ingens really is a massive plant and I've seen many other photos which also show similar size reference to people nearby. I would love to go see them one day.

I never could get any to germinate, even in vitro, and as it turns out there is actually an endophytic fungi of some sort which lives inside the seeds, making it seemingly almost impossible to germinate in vitro (at least in my experience, as well as that of a veteran tissue culture expert who also tried to germinate them in the 80's following the PNG Musa collection mission by then INIBAP. He also mentioned that the plants were full of endophytes making tissue culture of the meristems very difficult, and ultimately they all failed). I wouldn't doubt the endophyte has some role in it's germination in nature.

__________________
Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.