Snow banana
| Snow banana | ||||||||||||
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Great snow banana ( Ensete glaucum var. Wilsonii ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Ensete glaucum | ||||||||||||
| ( Roxb. ) Cheeseman |
The snow banana ( Ensete glaucum ) is a species in the genus within the family of Ensete musaceae ( Musaceae ). It is native to South and Southeast Asia.
description
Ensete glaucum is an herbaceous plant that can reach heights of up to 5 meters and does not form runners. It contains a pale yellow-orange milky juice . Their pseudo-trunk , thickened at the base, is cylindrical and yellow-green in color, with black-purple spots when old. The short-stalked leaves are 1.4 to 1.8 meters long and 50 to 60 centimeters wide, the blade is oblong, round, glabrous, wedge-shaped at the base and tailed at the very end.
The inflorescence is up to 2.5 meters long, the shaft cylindrical. The numerous bracts stand on top of each other like roof tiles and are permanent, with ten to twenty flowers per bract . The overgrown bracts measure 2.5 centimeters and are triple slit at the extreme end, the shorter free bracts are inverted heart-shaped and have a mucro at their extreme end .
The fruits are bare, black-violet berries that are up to 9 inches long and 3.5 inches thick. They are obovate to oblong-round, pointed at the base and rounded at the extreme end with a persistent perianth . The smooth, black, spherical seed measures about 1.2 cm in diameter.
The number of chromosomes is 2n = 18.
Dissemination and use
The plants are found in China ( Yunnan ), Nepal, Myanmar, India, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and New Guinea. They grow there at an altitude of 800–1100 m both wild and cultivated, as they are used as pig feed.
Systematics and botanical history
The species was first described in 1820 by William Roxburgh as Musa glauca and transferred to the genus Ensete in 1947 by Ernest Entwistle Cheesman .
One can distinguish between two varieties:
- Ensete glaucum var. Glaucum : It occurs from Nepal to New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago.
- Ensete glaucum var. Wilsonii (Tutcher) Häkkinen (Syn .: Ensete wilsonii (Tutcher) Cheesman ): It occurs only in Yunnan.
proof
- ↑ a b c d e f Ensete glaucum at Flora of China (English, last accessed on February 14, 2010)
- ↑ a b c Rafaël Govaerts (Ed.): Ensete glaucum. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved August 11, 2018.