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Originally Posted by canadianplant
AAAAhhhhhhh that makes ALOT of sence.
So is Basjoo the only Banana that has incomplete flowers? Are you saying you need MULTIPLE Basjoo to fertilize?
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The typical arrangement of flowers on a wild banana is female basal flowers followed by male distal flowers, which do not overlap temporally so as to promote outcrossing. With this arrangement in cultivation, you can sometimes hand pollinate the last hand of female flowers with the first hand of male flowers, but the other female flowers will have been inactive by then, and so it have the entire bunch be pollinated, you would need a different plant in the male the stage for the entire duration of the other plants female stage in order to collect pollen and do hand pollination.
However, there are quite a few species and varieties of species which have hermaphroditic/perfect/complete/bisexual (all referring so the same thing basically) basal flowers which routinely self-pollinate.