What's new.....

December 2004

Seed of the following bananas made available by Toby Spanner:

Ensete perrieri


August 2004

Seed of the following bananas made available by Toby Spanner:

Ensete sp. Kluay Pa
Musa cheesmani
Musa sikkimensis
Red Tiger
Musa sp. Burmese Blue


July 2004

My formal response to Valmayor & Danh's paper on Musella spelndida is published ... at last.


January 2004

Sequence of photographs added of Musella lasiocarpa flowering in the UK.

Tim Chapman's new forum for the discussion of the Musaceae is here.  A lot of fascinating new information will appear there before it appears here.


April 2003

In 2002 Valmayor & Danh published what they claim to be a new Musella, M. splendida, from Vietnam.  Don't get too excited, I think they have just re-discovered M. lasiocarpa

Seed of Musa thomsonii is now available from Toby Spanner.


November 2002

Following work by Carol Wong and colleagues (Wong et al 2002) the sections of Musa have been simplified.  See Summary 1 for a very brief explanation of Wong's work and revised arrangement of species into sections.

Contrary to my note in April 2002 it seems that Musa sp. "Yunnan" really is Musa itinerans.  The reasons for my confusion are given here.

Leading on from the above it seems as if discussions on "Yunnan" have flushed out a hitherto unrecognised, un-named and undescribed Musa species in Vietnam, Chuoi Rung Hoa Soan.

Images added of "Yunnan", Chuoi Rung Hoa Soan (VN1-054) and Musa itinerans.

Summary 1 and Summary 2 revised - again.


June 2002

Musa alinsanaya
- a new Australimusa from the Philippines.

Description of Musa exotica including its tentative placement in the Callimusa.

Description of Musa paracoccinea including its tentative placement in the Callimusa.

Description of Musa acuminata ssp. errans from the Philippines.

Liu et al 2002 and later Argent & Kiew 2002 finally (?) resolve the Musa coccinea Andrews vs Musa uranoscopos Loureiro issue - it's Musa coccinea Andrews.

It has been known in Japan for many years but thanks to Ai-zhong Liu and colleagues there is at last a paper in English (Liu et al 2002) that acknowledges Musa basjoo as a Chinese species not a Japanese one.

Summary 1 and Summary 2 revised - again.


April 2002

Musa sp. "Yunnan".  It's not Musa itinerans, but a seemingly undescribed species.

Summary 1 and Summary 2 revised - again.

Full details of the newly described Musa paracoccinea to follow soon.


January 2002

Musa lawitiensis Nasution and Supardiyono a new species from Indonesia.

Musa johnsii
Argent a new species from New Guinea.

Musa formosana from Taiwan reduced under Musa basjoo.

Summary 1 and Summary 2 revised - again.


February 2001

Shepherd 1999 considers it is a "near certainty" that Musa ornata is a "secondary species", a relic of a [relatively recent] hybrid swarm between Musa flaviflora and Musa velutina!

Summary 1 and Summary 2 revised, especially section Callimusa following receipt of information from Markku Häkkinen.

More images of the extraordinary Musa suratii courtesy of Jain Linton, Taman Pertanian Sabah.

Images of Musa ingens, the largest banana species in the world, in habitat in Papua New Guinea courtesy of Dr Jeff Daniells, Queensland Department of Primary Industry.


January 2001

Description and images of Musa suratii, an exciting and intriguing new species from Malaysia.

UK Musaceae page re-formatted  to be easier to read (hopefully! let me know).

There are now some images of all valid Ensete species that have been formally described:-

  • Photograph added of Ensete perrieri, courtesy of Dr. Thierry Deroin, Laboratoire de Phanérogamie, Musée National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris. 

  • Photographs added of Ensete superbum in cultivation and in the wild in Kerala, India.

  • Photograph added of Ensete glaucum flowering in Ganesh Mani Pradhan's garden, Kalimpong, West Bengal, India.


December 2000

New species added to the Summary.

Photographs added of the little known African Ensete, Ensete homblei.  Courtesy Mike Bingham.

Photographs added showing the flowering sequence of Musa laterita.  Courtesy Markku Häkkinen.   Musa laterita is a little Indian Rhodochlamys sold in the trade under the incorrect names of Musa ornata 'Bronze' and Musa ornata 'Red Salmon'.

Photographs added of Ensete ventricosum flowering in Ganesh Mani Pradhan's garden, Kalimpong, West Bengal, India.

Anyone with seed of Musa dechangensis ex Ruud Meeldijk has probably got seed of Musa basjoo and not Musa balbisiana as previously reported.  The mistake was caused by an error in the Chinese literature.


October 2000

Bananas You Can Grow an excellent new book for banana enthusiasts by Jim Waddick and Glenn Stokes is available.

Musa images reorganised and more added.


September 2000

Musa saporro - from Saporro, Hokkaido, offered for the first time commercially but it seems most likely that it is a form of Musa basjoo.

Musa dechangensis -
from China, offered for the first time commercially but it is actually a form of Musa balbisiana [note added December: M. dechangensis actually = M. basjoo.  The mistake was caused by an error in the Chinese literature].

Ensete wilsonii
separated from Ensete glaucum by Flora of China. [note added in December: This also seems to be a mistake and it is most probable that E. wilsonii should after all be reduced under E. glaucum].

New images

Musella lasiocarpa flowering in Yunnan.

Ensete glaucum from Roxburgh's Plants of the coast of Coromandel.

Ensete superbum from Roxburgh's Plants of the coast of Coromandel.



 


last revision 15 September 2004