| Description |
"Plant stooling sparsely (1 - 2
stems, Ridley) or freely (4 - 30 stems, Backer) ; pseudostems more
slender than those of most cultivated bananas, usually 3 - 5 metres high (up to 7 m., Backer),
rarely exceeding 25 cm. in diameter at base, with varying development of brown-black
markings from almost green to almost entirely black, or sometimes reddish brown in lower
parts ; leaf-sheaths and petioles commonly more or less glaucous or pruinose, but
extremely variable in development of wax.
Leaf blades oblong, 2 - 2.5 m. long, 40 - 60 cm. wide,
truncate at apex, usually rounded at base, sometimes rounded on one side and acute on the
other, varying from green or green tinged with purple to wholly purple on the lower
surface, green above, with or without flecks or bars of purplish brown pigmentation,
variable also from not or slightly to heavily waxy beneath, midribs green, greenish
yellow, or more or less strongly tinged with red below ; petioles 60 - 90 cm. long, in
some forms very slender, in others stouter, their margins sometimes almost erect, leaving
an open adaxial channel, in other forms strongly incurved over the channel and almost
covering it, usually definitely developed, especially below, where the petiole passes into
the leaf-sheath, here usually closely appressed to the pseudostem, occasionally slightly
bent outward away from it, early becoming scarious in this region, when young often
bordered with a red line.
Inflorescence subhorizontal or vertically deflexed, its
peduncle and rachis usually more or less thickly pubescent with brown hairs, sometimes
glabrous ; basal flowers female, the number of female "hands" varying up to
about 10, commonly fewer, occasionally more, upper hands male.
Female flowers about 16 per bract in two rows ; compound
tepal about 2.5 cm. long (to 4.2 cm., Backer) white, yellowish or slightly purple, with
white or yellow tip and lobes ; free tepal translucent, about half as long as the compound
tepal ; ovary pale green, yellowish green, or purplish, glabrous or with a few fine hairs
near the base, or (fide Backer) more or less thickly covered with soft hairs.
Male bud in advanced blooming ovoid to turbinate, usually
acute, the bracts convolute, imbricate at the extreme tip only, or rather strongly
imbricate. Bracts various shades of purple or red, from bright red to dark violet,
ovate, usually acute at apex, sometimes yellow at the extreme tip ; outer surface more or
less glaucous, faintly ribbed longitudinally, inner surface paler, light red or yellowish,
always paling towards the base. Only one bract lifted at a time, bracts revolute on fading
and early deciduous, often a little before the flowers they subtend.
Male flowers about 20 per bract, in two rows ; compound
tepal 3.5 - 4.5 cm. long, about 1.2 cm. wide, white, cream, yellowish or pale orange,
sometimes purplish, upper part of tepal including the teeth, yellow, varying from pale
lemon yellow to bright orange, the 2 outer teeth varying from 2 to 7 mm. long, with a
dorsal filiform appendage 1 - 2 mm. long, the centre lobe usually slightly shorter and
broader ; free tepal about half as long as the compound tepal, translucent, boat-shaped,
variable at apex but usually transversely corrugated just below the apicula ; stamens at
first as long as the perianth or slightly shorter, later exserted, their anthers usually
pink before dehiscence.
Fruit bunch asymmetrical if borne subhorizontally, compact
if vertically, the fruits exhibiting marked geotropic curvature in either case.
Individual fruit 8 - 13 cm. long, 1.5 - 3 cm. in diameter, subcylindrical, the angles of
the young fruit almost disappearing at ripeness in most forms, rather abruptly narrowed at
base into a pedicel of about 1 cm. (sometimes pubescent), and at apex into a prominent
acumen 0.6 - 1.5 cm. long ; pericarp about 2 mm. thick, bright yellow at full ripeness,
pulp whitish or cream to yellow.
Seeds (when present) dull black, smooth (ex Backer) or more
commonly minutely tuberculate, irregularly angulate-depressed, 6 - 7 mm. across and about
3 mm. high".
(Cheesman 1948b. References to Ridley and Backer in
the above description are cited below). |