Musa buchanani

Musa buchanani J. G. Baker, Annals of Botany 7:  207 (1893).

Accepted name Ensete ventricosum (F. M. J. Welwitsch) E. E. Cheesman, Kew Bulletin 2 (2): 101 (1947) and R. E. D. Baker & N. W. Simmonds, Kew Bulletin 8 (3): 405 (1953) with correction in Kew Bulletin 8 (4): 574 (1953).
Synonyms Ensete buchanani (J. G. Baker) E. E. Cheesman, Kew Bulletin 2 (2): 102 (1947).
Authorities The source for the accepted name is Baker & Simmonds 1953 as  corrected (please see link below). 

The synonym is from Cheesman 1947a.
Section  
Distribution Tropical East Africa.  M. buchanani was found by J. Buchanan in the Shiré Highlands of Nyasaland (now Malawi) in July 1885. 
Description Nearly allied to M. Ensete, but the bracts linear-oblong, in Buchanan's specimens 1 - 1˝ ft. long, 2˝ - 4 in. broad.   Flowers 10 in a row.  Ovary cylindrical, above an inch long.  Unexpanded calyx cylindrical as long as the ovary.  Seeds as large as those of M. Ensete, glossy black, not tubercled. 

(Baker 1893).
References Baker 1893 : 207, Baker 1894 a : 328, Baker 1898 : 329, Baker & Simmonds 1953 : 405, Champion 1967 : 39, Cheesman 1947a : 102, Fawcett 1913 : 275, Lock 1993 : 3, Mobot Tropicos, Schumann 1912.
Comments This was one of a number of African Musa transferrred to Ensete by Cheesman in his 1947 paper reviving the genus Ensete.  It was later reduced to a synonym of Ensete ventricosum by Baker & Simmonds 1953 as corrected (please see link above).  It is now recognised that there are no wild Musa native to Africa, only Ensete.

The type material (holotype) is in the Herbarium at RBG Kew (Shiré highlands, Buchanan no. 47 of 1885 collection).  According to Baker 1893 "Sir John Kirk saw the seeds from the Shiré valley, at a height of 2,000 ft. above sea-level".

Compiled partly with information from Gerda Rossel.


 


last revision 23 April 2003