Musa pumila
Musa x paradisiaca var. pumila J. G. A. Forster, De Plantis Esculentis Insulam Oceani Australis Commentatio Botanica: 32 (1786).
Musa pumila W. Bojer, MS. (1835). nomen.Musa x paradisiaca var. pumila J. G. A. Forster, De Plantis Esculentis Insulam Oceani Australis Commentatio Botanica: 32 (1786).
Accepted name none - an undetermined cultivated banana (Pisang Kitsil). or possibly
Musa acuminata L. A. Colla, Memoria della Reale Accademia delle Scienze di Torino 25 : 384 (1820). [Memoria sul genere Musa e monografia del Medesimo 66 (1820).] and E. E. Cheesman, Kew Bulletin 3 (1): 22 (1948).Synonyms Authorities Section Distribution Description References 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 punctata 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. However, the dwarf stature of this plant is suggestive of Musa (AAA group) 'Dwarf Cavendish' in which case Musa acuminata is available as the accepted name.
Forster's Musa pumila is at
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jZD_aFFQYbAC&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_toc_s&cad=1#PPA110,M1Musa pumila W. Bojer, MS. (1835). nomen.
Accepted name none - an undetermined cultivated banana or possibly
Musa acuminata L. A. Colla, Memoria della Reale Accademia delle Scienze di Torino 25 : 384 (1820). [Memoria sul genere Musa e monografia del Medesimo 66 (1820).] and E. E. Cheesman, Kew Bulletin 3 (1): 22 (1948).Synonyms Authorities Section Distribution Description References Bojer 1835, Fosberg et al 1983 : 129 Comments In 1835 Wenceslas (or Wenzel) Bojer wrote a list of plants of Agalega which included Musa pumila. Commenting on the list Fosberg et al (1983) state that "we can find no record of publication of this name. Perhaps Musa nana Lam. was intended". Given the obscurity of Georg Forster this is hardly surprising but it likely that this is Forster's plant. The dwarf stature of the plant is suggestive of Musa (AAA group) 'Dwarf Cavendish' in which case Musa acuminata is available as the accepted name.
Mention of Musa pumila Bojer 1835 is at http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/duffy/arb/273-281/273.pdf
last updated 20/10/2008