Banana with Amnesia! Please help? Do you know his name?
 

This mat of bananas is growing in Pensacola in zone 8b. It is growing in front of a Chinese restaurant. They are suffering from Group Amnesia and they would like to know their name. If you recognize these bananas PLEASE say something. End the suffering. Tell them their name.



This mat had three flower stalks. Just from the looks the banana looks like it may be long and slender like what you get at the store.



Here is another of the flower stalks.



This is a closeup of the bloom. Hopefully someone will recognize them.



And a closer closeup. Anything look familiar. They sure would like to know who they are.



The group overall is about 12' to 15' tall. The bloom height pictured is about seven foot off the ground. That is the current height of the bloom. There are hands above it.

OK can anyone give these bananas some peace? Tell them their name.

Thanks

PS I will have to verify this but I believe that the bananas in question where in the ground during the 2010 freeze which saw two weeks of every night below freezing and two separate nights of 19 degrees. I will look into this.

Re: Banana with Amnesia! Please help? Do you know his name?
 

Orinoco

Musa Orinoco - Bananas Wiki

~JaNan

Re: Banana with Amnesia! Please help? Do you know his name?
 

2nd vote for Orinoco. Sounds like a good one get some pups.

Re: Banana with Amnesia! Please help? Do you know his name?
 

Orinoco all the way you know yall ! haha

Re: Banana with Amnesia! Please help? Do you know his name?
 

I definitely support the previous members choice 100% :^)

Re: Banana with Amnesia! Please help? Do you know his name?
 

What things specifically did you see that identify this as Orinoco or was it a combination of things. Is there a field guide to Bananas that runs you down a check list ending in a positive identification. If there isn't perhaps some of the knowledgeable ones should write one or maybe start it as a group project in the forum that members could add to reserving the editting features to the seriously knowledgable ones. Everyone could add but only the best could edit. When a section is deemed finished it would be locked and then available forever for everyone.

Re: Banana with Amnesia! Please help? Do you know his name?
 

Re: Banana with Amnesia! Please help? Do you know his name?
 

THE most common banana plant of the Gulf Coast to boot. You actually can find them in grocery stores - but in very very very limited supply and only every once in a while.

I will not buy them since I have a million of them.

And yeah, those are Orinoco.

Re: Banana with Amnesia! Please help? Do you know his name?
 

Orinocco. By height, bunch size, finger shape, and flower.

Re: Banana with Amnesia! Please help? Do you know his name?
 

*Thread moved to appropriate forum*

Shape of fruit, inflorescence and leaves....my vote is also orinoco. Not sure if they're dwarf or tall, but very possibly dwarf since they don't look all that tall (but not super short either). Maybe just a healthy group of dwarfs.

Re: Banana with Amnesia! Please help? Do you know his name?
 

The group overall is about 12' to 15' tall

Re: Banana with Amnesia! Please help? Do you know his name?
 

LOL...okay, well then I fail in reading. Orinoco regular it is!

Re: Banana with Amnesia! Please help? Do you know his name?
 

Thanks everyone. Now for a stupid question is a regular and a tall the same thing?

Now a not so stupid question. Is it possible for them to have gone through our 2010 winter and still produced a bloom and fruit that large since then? They were not protected in anyway. They do receive irrigation everyday.

Re: Banana with Amnesia! Please help? Do you know his name?
 

To answer your second question, yes, I have one that is blooming right now but with considerably less fruit on it. It's in a pecan stump and I actually cut it down to about 2 feet high or so. I was amazed that it came back instead of just sending out a bunch of pups. It's about 5 feet tall, maybe higher.

Another one I cut down last year after a huge wind line came through bloomed and it was only 2 feet tall. I don't recall if it had set a flag before the wind event or not but it seemed to have stopped getting taller.

So from what I can tell, it's nothing to do with the size of the plant so much but, in essence, like when a spider runs out of silk, the amount of leaves it makes. It makes so many leaves and then blooms and they need so many leaves to make fruit and more leaves to make good fruit etc.

The first question - I don't know because I don't think there are dwarf Orinoco in the Gulf Coast that are growing wild like the "regular" Orinoco. I want to get some though. In New Orleans the Orinocos get up to 25 feet tall. In Mandeville where I live they get to maybe 15 at best. Big difference. All the ones I've got in Mandeville I brought over from New Orleans.

Hope that helps.

Re: Banana with Amnesia! Please help? Do you know his name?
 

Yup. Pretty sure they just call the larger version 'orinoco.' The only reason people use 'tall' or 'regular' is to distinguish it from dwarf orinoco.

Re: Banana with Amnesia! Please help? Do you know his name?
 

Some add tall or regular to the name Orinoco so readers know they are not talking about Dwarf Orinoco. Orinoco seems to be very variable in size. I have read reported size ranges from 10'-12', 12'-16', 16'-20' and a few that say it can reach over 20'. I have also seen a number of mats here in Texas that flowering height is about 7'-8' pstem height. I have not measured them all, so I would estimate a range of 7'-9' and these are not the dwarf variation. I don't know if the height differences are genetic or environmental.

I came across a similar scenario here in Texas this year. There were multiple mats of Orinoco and all of them had fruit or were in the process of flowering even though there were many nights of below freezing temps in that town and a low of 21. You can find more info on the post Interesting Banana.