Musa ochracea

Musa ochracea
K. Shepherd, Kew Bulletin 17 (3): 461 (1964).

Accepted name Musa ochracea K. Shepherd, Kew Bulletin 17 (3): 461 (1964).
Synonyms
Authorities Shepherd 1964.

The World Checklist of Monocotyledons lists Musa ochracea K.Sheph., Kew Bull. 17: 461 (1964) as an accepted name.

Section Eumusa (Musa) 1.
Distribution India.
Description Plant densely stooling; pseudostems up to 3 m., robust, waxless, ochreous Yellow-green. Petioles slender, up to 70 cm., margins erect above, spreading below with broad scarious transversely wrinkled wing; leaf lamina to 2 m. by one-third as wide, markedly truncate-elliptic. Peduncle subpendulous or nearly horizontal, slender, shortly and densely pubescent. Female hands basal, 5-8, subtending bracts lanceolate, about 30 cm. long, brownish red-purple outside, becoming brownish yellow at the tip, paler and streaky within. Female flowers 15-20 in two rows, with pedicel 1.5 cm., ovary 4 cm. and perianth 4 cm. long; ovary faintly tinged with anthocyanin at the apex, with ovules in four rows in each loculus; compound tepal pale orange-yellow; free sepal 3.3 cm. long, faintly yellow, with apex naviculate, transversely corrugated, shortly apiculate; staminodes 1.5-2.0 cm.; style slender with stigma dorsiventrally compressed and protruding beyond the perianth. Fruits oblanecolate-cylindrical, 6 cm. x 2 cm., borne on stalks 3 cm. long and sharply tapered above to slender, truncate bottlenecks about 1 cm. long. Seeds rounded-angular, smooth, light brown, perhaps the smallest in the genus, 3.5 mm. in diameter and not more than 2.5 mm. deep. Male axis pendulous, long, pale green, with bract-insertions little prominent; male bud large, convolute, narrowly ovoid or, in advanced blooming, hastate in outline, high-shouldered, acute; bracts narrowly lanceolate, acute, revolute after opening, the colour as in the basal [female] bracts but more uniform and extending almost to the tip. Male flowers to 20 or more per bract in 2 rows, with ovary rudiment 1.5 cm. and perianth 4.5 cm. long; compound tepal pale orange-yellow with orange teeth; free tepal 2.5 cm., with apex transversely corrugated and shortly apiculate; stamens protruding slightly in fully opened flowers, pale; style shorter, very slender, with orange stigma. Chromosome number 2n=2x=22.

(from Shepherd 1964)

References Shanmugavellu et al 1992, Shepherd 1964.
Comments This strange species is still unknown in the wild.

Musa species with much smaller seeds are now known e.g. Musa lawitiensis.

Image:

There is one image of Musa ochracea.

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last updated 01/05/2008