Musa megalocarpa

Musa x megalocarpa

Musa x megalocarpa T. Nakai, Bulletin of the Tokyo Science Museum. No. 22. II: 17 (1948).

Accepted name	Musa (?AAB group) 'Pisang Galek' or Musa x paradisiaca L., Species Plantarum : 1043 (1753).
Synonyms	1. Musa x paradisiaca L. subsp. normalis O. Kuntze in part. 2. Musa acuminata L. A. Colla
Authorities	Nakai himself gives the local name. Synonyms: 1. is cited by Nakai. 2. is from Hotta 1989. The World Checklist of Monocotyledons lists Musa x megalocarpa Nakai, Bull. Tokyo Sci. Mus. 22: 11 (1948) as a synonym of Musa x paradisiaca L., Sp. Pl.: 1043 (1753) which is listed as an accepted name.
Section
Distribution	Indonesia (Java).
Description
References	Hotta 1989, Nakai 1948 : 11, 17.
Comments	This is one of several Indonesian banana cultivars given a spurious species name by Takenosin Nakai. Nakai says of it in his idiosyncratic English; "This is a banana which affords biggest fruits among javanese bananas. The glabrous stoutest axis of fruiting bunch (5 - 6 cm in diameter) with few (5 - 12) long (25 - 33 cm) horn-shaped fruits in each hand gives a magnificent outlook. As a cooking banana none can surpass it in its quality and quantity. Natives who go in mountain forest to gather fuels take two fruits only with them. They roast one of them in the late afternoon and another in the next morning as those two are enough for their food. Botanists often mingle Pisang tandok (Musa corniculata) and Pisang Lempeneng (Musa pallida) with this and put together under Musa paradisiaca L. or common plantain, but that is away from reality. All of them belong to different group". The "group" referred to is not a Shepherd & Simmonds genome group but one of Nakai's own devising. Hotta frequently gives Musa acuminata as a synonym for cultivated, fruiting bananas. Even where the cultivar is derived exclusively from Musa acuminata I think this is unhelpful. But here it is plain wrong. This plant obviously has some M. balbisiana in it and is most probably an AAB. After Nakai's comment about different plants being lumped together under M. paradisiaca it is mildly ironic that is exactly what the World Checklist of Monocotyledons does.