Musa paradisiaca var fatua

Musa x paradisiaca var. fatua

Musa x paradisiaca var. fatua J. G. A. Forster, De Plantis Esculentis Insulam Oceani Australis Commentatio Botanica: 32 (1786).

Accepted name	none - an undetermined cultivated banana (Pisang Alphuru). or Musa x paradisiaca L., Species Plantarum : 1043 (1753).
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Comments	Georg Forster is not a major author in the Musaceae but, until his mention here, he has been a neglected one. Forster did little more than name 13 of the 16 bananas listed by Rumphius under the general heading Musa domestica; Rumphius gave binomial names to three of them himself. However, Forster was the first post-Linnean author to assign names to Rumphius' bananas and has some small significance as a result. Rumphius listed Pisang Alphuru twice, the first time as a form of Musa domestica, the second as Musa alphuru/Musa ceramica. It is the former that Forster here calls Musa fatua. Forster published the name as Musa fatua but the use of the binomial does not mean that he thought the plant was a true species. In fact Forster treated all 16 bananas as "varieties" of Linnaeus' Musa paradisiaca. Forster's Musa fatua is at http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jZD_aFFQYbAC&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_toc_s&cad=1#PPA110,M1