RROBBINS53

Does anyone have much experience with either of these two plants? Living in Hawaii I collect Ancient Hawaiian Bananas. I have Iholena Lele but friends in Florida talk about their Red and White Iholenas. My understanding is both Red and White are actually tissue cultured from Lele. Can anyone confirm this and is anyone growing either of these two? I'd love to see photos,(preferably in fruit!). And while I'm at it does anyone grow Mai'a Ula'Ula or Mai'a Upehupehu? Let's talk Hawaiian bananas.(Mai'a)/Users/bob/Desktop/IMG_8475.HEIC Photo of Iholena Lele.

pitangadiego

In my experience both have red blushed undersides to their leaves. Red was very cold sensitive. White less so.

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Reminosys

I actually have an ongoing research project on this exact matter! There's certainly some probability that some Red and White Iholena/Iholene (misspelling from the mainland) are tissue cultured Iholena Lele. At the same time, there's some evidence that suggests a few now missing varieties were introduced many decades ago. Where it gets complicated, is that bananas often get renamed multiple times, in addition to the many instances of misidentification.

Now in regards to Mai'a 'Ula'ula, it's a historical variety but certainly not ancient. There was a banana collector in Hawai'i by the name of Dr. Adrian Brash, but his doctorate was in dentistry rather than botany. He worked with a Bishop Museum botanist named Marie Neal, and the name was coined in the 1960s by her when discussing this "new" find by Dr. Brash. Dr. Brash was prone to many mistaken identifications though, and Marie Neal did not specialize in bananas, so there's no telling whether 'Ula'ula is distinct from the red morphs of Lele. It was fortunately preserved in the International Musa Germplasm Transit Centre before disappearing in Hawai'i, but that sample may not be available due to infections.

Mai'a 'Upehupehu is a more recent discovery, in that it wasn't known before 2003. Dr. Angela Kay Kepler, who wrote THE book on Hawai'ian bananas, includes an entry on 'Upehupehu in that book. The original name for the variety isn't known, so Dr. Kepler worked with the Hawaiian Lexicon Committee to give it a name. It's probably not widely spread since the book was published in 2011, bunchy top virus is an ever present threat in Hawai'i. I very much recommend buying the book, because it covers such a broad swathe of varieties beyond the traditional ones too: https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/the...-then-and-now/

As for the research I'm doing, there was this rare fruit enthusiast by the name of Bill Whitman, and he introduced several Hawai'ian banana varieties given to him by Dr. Brash. Bill Whitman shared plants with others, but hurricanes and mislabeling makes tracking down the offspring of those original introductions difficult. Whether those varieties were actually what Dr. Brash thought they were is another issue though, as again, I stress that he had made multiple errors.

The earliest documented evidence I have (so far) of "Red Iholena" (without the misspelling) dates to 1979, whereas the trail of 'Ula'ula goes cold about the same time. My suspicion is that someone may have relabeled an Iholena 'Ula'ula to Red Iholena, as Bill Whitman provided the direct translation (Ula=red) when he spoke about Dr. Brash's find in a 1960 meeting. Here's a link to the notes from that meeting: https://journals.flvc.org/fshs/article/view/101026
No telling whether any of the current Red Iholena/Iholene are actually 'Ula'ula though, especially with how prone bananas generally are to random mutations with or without tissue culture. Not to mention several hurricanes absolutely thrashing Florida since the original introductions.

Happy to share more details if anyone is interested, the rabbit hole goes deeper the more I look into the abyss.

Best day

Great info.

Thanks