Musa calosperma

Musa calosperma F. J. H. von Mueller, Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 10: 355 (1885) and Gardeners' Chronicle series 3, 20: 369 & 467 fig. 85 (1896).

Accepted name Ensete glaucum (W. Roxburgh) E. E. Cheesman, Kew Bulletin 2 (2): 101 (1947) and N. W. Simmonds, Kew Bulletin 14 (2): 206 (1960).
Synonyms Ensete calospermum (F. J. H. von Mueller) E. E. Cheesman, Kew Bulletin 2 (2): 102 (1947).
Authorities The authority for the accepted name is Simmonds 1960. 

The synonym is from Cheesman 1947a.
Distribution New Guinea (Papua New Guinea incl. New Britain and New Ireland).
Description See Ensete calospermum.
References Champion 1967 : 39, Cheesman 1947a : 102, Simmonds 1960 : 205-6, 212.
Comments This New Guinea Musa was transferrred to Ensete by Cheesman in his 1947 paper reviving the genus Ensete.  Simmonds subsequently reduced it to a synonym of Ensete glaucum on the basis of similarities with collections of that species from south-east Asia. 

This taxon has been mis-spelled on occasion.  As noted by Cheesman 1947, "
The Gardeners' Chronicle note cited [above] is supplemented (ibid. p. 467) by a drawing (fig. 85) which by a printer's error is titled "Inflorescence of Musa alosperma".  The error is worth notice because the combination "Musa alosperma" has found its way into Index Londinensis."  And in Champion 1967 the specific epithet is mis-spelled "callosperma"

From Simmonds 1960: The type is a single seed in the National Herbarium, Melbourne (MEL) labelled 'Musa calosperma (Northern New Guinea) Moresby Island', which agrees perfectly with the seeds described [see description at Ensete calospermum].  Letters from Miklouho-Maclay to von Mueller (also in MEL) make it clear that Miklouho-Maclay saw fruits at Moresby Island in 1879 but lost the specimens; the seed that ultimately became the type came from a necklace collected on the Maclay coast, where he [von Mueller] did not see the plants.  There is also at Melbourne a collection by W. V. Fitzgerald (Oct. 1895) from the Mambare River.

Photographs by Simmonds and Womersley & Simmonds and Fitzgerald are at RBG Kew and the Department of Agriculture, Queensland.

Compiled partly with information from Gerda Rossel.


 


last revision 23 April 2003