Musa ensete var montbeliardii

Musa ensete var. montbeliardii

Musa ensete J. F. Gmelin var. montbeliardii D. Bois, Bulletin du Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle 2ème série, t. II, no.6 : 688 - 690 (1930).

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) 'Montbeliardii' hort. ex D. Bois, Bulletin du Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle 2ème série, t. II, no.6 : 688 - 690 (1930).
Synonyms
Authorities	drc. The World Checklist of Monocotyledons gives Musa ensete var. montbeliardii Bois, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat., II, 2: 688 (1931) as a synonym of Ensete ventricosum var. montbeliardii (Bois) Cufod., Bull. Jard. Bot. Natl. Belg. 42(3, Suppl.): 1593 (1972) and Ensete ventricosum (Welw.) Cheesman, Kew Bull. 2: 101 (1947 publ. 1948) which is listed as an accepted name.
Section
Distribution
Description
References	Moore 1957
Comments	In 1930 Bois published a paper "Bananiers d'Abyssinie a Feuilles Rouges". He described two plants the first of which he thought to be a variety of Gmelin's Musa ensete (var. Montbeliardi) but the second he thought belonged to a different and unknown Musa sp. (var. Maureli). The variety names derive from the Marquis de Scey-Montbeliard de Brun who had supplied Bois with the plants and J. Maurel who had first drawn Montbeliard's attention to the red-leaved "bananas" of Ethiopia. Following Baker & Simmonds (1953) Musa ensete was reduced under Ensete ventricosum and this was formalised for var. Montbeliardii by Cufodontis 1972 who treats the plant as a botanical variety like Bois but, to accord with modern practise under the ICBN, changed the termination to "ii". However, from the context of the "discovery" of the plants by Maurel and from Bois' paper it is possible to deduce that this plant is a cultivated variety (cultivar) and not a naturally occurring variety growing and reproducing itself in the "wild". That the plant is a cultivated form and not a wild form means that the name given by Bois should properly be accorded cultivar status and written as 'Montbeliardii' and not var. Montbeliardii. Having first been introduced inot cultivation in the 1950's Ensete ventricosum 'Montbeliardii' was re-introduced into cultivation by the UK nursery KobaKoba in 2003. See Ensete ventricosum cultivars for more on this.