Gabe15

There are many examples of the same name being used for different cultivars, and in some cultures and contexts what may be seen as different cultivars to some people may be considered the same to others, and I think there is some wiggle room for that.

That being said, I don't think the fact that a tissue culture lab screwed up and mass propagated an error is a good excuse to consolidate names. Since scientific credibility of edible banana taxonomy can only go so far, to the subgroup level specifically, and 'Namwah' and 'Ice Cream' exist in different subgroups, I would stand by insisting they be differentiated whenever the opportunity arises. If they were different cultivars within the same subgroup, then having the same name is not so big of an issue as it can be extremely difficult to differentiate them using either morphological or molecular based analysis.

The notion of just allowing clearly different and non-closely-related cultivars to be called the same thing does not provide anyone with helpful information. We need only to try and figure out what a 'Ladyfinger' banana is to see where that logic ends up (it's used for so many different varieties it's a totally useless name).

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