Originally Posted by GreenFin

Here's an update on the plant that FHN sold to me as Musa 'Double' (AAA).

Cavendish bananas like the 'Double' typically have wine marks on juvenile leaves and wide-open petioles, but my plant has never had any wine marks (I got it as a 4" tall baby) and its petioles range from 2/3 to fully closed (a trait associated with ABB and AAB varieties rather than AAA varieties). Furthermore, whereas Cavendish bananas are extremely susceptible to cold (like my 'Dwarf Cavendish' and 'Williams Hybrid' planted nearby that went dormant early on and started dying back), this plant has kept pace with my hardiest varieties.

My best guess heading into the inflorescence was that it was either a 'Dwarf Namwah' (ABB) or 'Raja Puri' (AAB). Now that it has started flowering (p-stem 5'6") and the first hand is exposed, DN appears unlikely, since Namwahs have purple pedicels (the connectors between the individual fruits and the base of the hand), but this plant produces green pedicels. [see Ice Cream ‘Blue java’ flag leaf... In zone 7b!!!! for lots of great pics of purple pedicels on a Namwah]

There are very few fruit (10 fingers on the first hand, 2nd hand is an intermediate hand with mostly male fingers and just 3 females, and each ensuing hand is all male), but that may be the result of the plant attempting its first flower in the dead of winter and getting frosted when the bud was emerging.

What do you think? Is it Raja Puri or something else?