figafita

Are these the future bananas? Please excuse my ignorance but this is my first banana flower. I've seen banana flowers with banana already formed. i have not seen them when they start. Do i need to do anything?... or just wait for mother nature to take its course? Thanks

Kat2

I can't see your pictures when I click on the thumbnail and the small shots are too small. Why not post photos here?

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meizzwang

Congratulations on getting bananas to flower in the bay area, it's not an easy task! Do you know what variety it was sold to you as? I can't zoom in on the photo, but those are male flowers, which won't produce any bananas. The female flowers are the first to open, so you should see little bananas developing above these male flowers.

figafita

figafita

Thank you meizzwang. Somebody gave it to me as ice cream banana.
I am sad...I do not see any bananas above these flowers. I went now to look and to my surprise the older ones (on the right on second pic) fell off ...Will I have some banana? :-(



the flowers on the right opened 2-3 days ago and fell off. The one on the left opened today

bananaT

Sorry, but those are all male flowers.
You don't have any fruits growing( female flowers).

That's very interesting though, I've never seen a banana flower and form
.not female flowers.

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Gabe15

Not only will those male flowers not form fruit, but even if your plant did form fruit, it would not be "edible" in the banana sense. Your plant is a wild species, Musa balbisiana, which forms very seedy fruit when pollinated, but if not pollinated which can easily happen in cultivation, the fruits will not develop. I have seen M. balbisiana grow fine in the Bay Area, it is a hardy plant and a nice landscape specimen, but not useful for making fruit. The plant is excellent for most other non-fruit uses of bananas however.

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

Hamakua

Lots of pollen on those flowers

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figafita

OH, i am soooo disappointed.... About 3 years ago I lost my ice cream banana and a member gifted me 'he said' an ice cream banana. I was so happy and baby it for the last 3 years thinking it was a fruiting banana. I am growing it in pot so i do not need a landscape banana. What a disappointment after all this time.

meizzwang

Many of us share your pain! To recap. what many others have said on this forum, the banana world is filled with similar stories. A lot of the big TC sellers (wellspring gardens, green earth publishing, Florida Hill Nursery, etc) are notorious for consistently selling incorrectly labeled plants. Either the original supplier got it wrong to begin with, or the retailer mixed it up. A well-intended hobbyist will purchase what they think is ice cream, share some pups with their friends, and then years later realize they never had ice cream to begin with. Problem is, their friends have already started to distribute pups too, so the cycle continues. Many varieties are near impossible to get a 100% correct ID without seeing the flower and countless other details (variety dependent). Some can't be ID'ed until you've harvested and tasted a ripe banana from the plant...and even that, you still might not be able to know for sure what you have!

I can't say what happened in your situation because I haven't heard of any of the main original TC suppliers sending M. babisiana in lieu of an edible variety.....

Nice thing is, quite a few members here have solid reputations and multiple posts photo-documenting the varieties they offer to other members, so you can be confident the plant you're receiving is the real deal.

Davey

Used to be a real stickler for correct botanical and cultivar names until a couple of college botany courses. Loved the courses, but found out the plant world is a lot bigger, more complex, and more ambiguous than the animal world.

Also, I discovered that botanical plant i.d. standards are far more accurate than horticultural standards. Like, science vs applied science.

And, the farther away one is from a given plant's home range, the more likely it is to be mis-i.d.'d.

Which is why sites like this are so valuable! So glad to have found it!


Miriam Davey
Baton Rouge LA

sputinc7

One thing about it, though.. If you find a banana you really like and can't find out what it is, who cares? Eat em and enjoy!
It is nice if you can find out, but not necessary for the home gardener.
As for the sellers who consistently get it wrong, they should be ashamed, but what are we gonna do about it?

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Varieties I supposedly bought: Manzano, Cavendish, Blue Java, Sweetheart, and Gros Michel.
What it seems I actually have: Brazilian, Cavendish, Namwah, Dwarf Red, Gros Michel, Pisang Ceylon, Veinte Cohol and SH 3640, and American Goldfinger. FHIA 1, Paggi and FHIA 17... Always room for one more.

Kat2

Compared to ficus, musa identification is a piece of cake.

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