Musa x paradisiaca var. lunaris

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

Accepted name	none - an undetermined cultivated banana (Pisang Bulang-trang). 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.  Forster published the name as Musa lunaris 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 lunaris is at http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jZD_aFFQYbAC&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_toc_s&cad=1#PPA111,M1

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last updated 20/10/2008