Does anyone have any information on this banana? I saw a pretty one yesterday at a festival and bought a pup but neglected to get any specifics on it. The tag says Musa Sum x Cross. Is it ornamental or edible.
Musa Sum x Cross ?
Go to bananas.com and they should be able to tell you about it
Thanks, I just did that and so far I have learned that Sum is short for Sumatra. Still working on the cross part.
Could be crossed with anything. I would go with what you know and if Sumatra is edible the cross should be also.
Thanks
It's crossed with Gran Nain. They crossed a pretty ornamental banana with a fruiting variety, hopefully to get a pretty fruiting banana. I think most fruiting bananas start off with spotted leaves but then as they get big the leaves are just green.
The full name is Sumatrana X Cross
You can look up sumatrana 'Zebrinia' (Rojo) to see one of the parents.
Thank you, it will be interesting to see this one next summer. The parent plant was beautiful.
I had a couple I grew from little plugs this year, I basically put them in pots and ignored them, but got some nice leaves:
it would be wonderful if they kept this coloration as large plants!
Wish I had taken a picture of the mother plant, it was very red. All the plants have successfully grown for over 5 years where I bought this one. It is a research facility and they are looking into the cold hardiness.
Sounds like a neat place! Do they let the public visit?
Musa sumatrana & Musa zebrina are synonyms of Musa acuminata.
Musa acuminata is a parent of all edible bananas.
You can tell if the banana is an edible type if the fruit is smooth and creamy inside, rather than full of buck-shot like seeds.
Yes they do. http://www.ugaextension.com/bamboo/
This was originally a research facility for bamboo but recently more emphasis has been placed on cold hardy citrus and bananas.
You can visit most anytime but several times a year that have festivals like last weekend and they sell excess stock as a fund raiser,