Bananas you can grow
Robin Carrier (Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:07:40 PST)
whew!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lee Poulsen" <wpoulsen@pacbell.net>
To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 7:43 PM
Subject: Re: [pbs] Bananas you can grow
On Nov 29, 2011, at 9:33 AM, John Grimshaw wrote:
Apropos of Musa being a geophyte, which would normally be expected to have
an underground dormant phase, I would say that this pushes the boundaries
of
the definition a bit, as in natural situations they are effectively
evergreen and ever-growing. Obviously some of the harder ones can survive
being defoliated by frost, but does this qualify them as geophytes? When I
was last in Tanzania (2009) my area was very hard-hit by a long drought
and
established banana clumps were reduced to bare 'poles' with perhaps a few
tatty greenish leaves from the centre. I've no doubt that the clumps
survived, however, and are probably bearing now, so in climatic
emergencies
the geophytic back-up plan works, but it's not the normal form of growth
for
Musaceae.
I never thought of geophytes as requiring an underground dormant phase in
order to be considered geophytes. I had always understood geophytes to
plants that formed corms, bulbs, tubers, rhizomes, or similar organs,
whether or not they went dormant. There are a number of geophytes that are
evergreen such as Worsleya, some of the Crinums, in my climate the venerable
bearded iris never loses all of its leaves, Neomaricas, etc. I've always
assumed bananas are geophytes because when I've ordered some cultivars and
was sent a large corm, which I have always planted below ground, eventually
leaves begin to emerge and it proceeds to grow just like every other
"bulbous" geophyte I've tried growing. In some marginal climate zones, many
of the banana cultivars and Musa species are "root hardy" and die down to
the corms each winter and sprout and grow again every spring after it warms
up. This behavior *would* fit in with your definition without stretching it,
I would think.
--Lee Poulsen
Pasadena, California, USA - USDA Zone 10a
Latitude 34°N, Altitude 1150 ft/350 m