Gabe15

Great question Brent! Very simple, but for the fun of learning I'll make it a complex answer (or it may seem simple to people...read on and find out!). Also I'm working on a "composition"....if you will....that will make use of these long thought out answers from my head, so its actually productive for me to write these down.

If you don't want to dive into the swamp world of bananas, skip to the bottom!

The key here is get a grasp of the immense diversity of bananas and how it is organized, and then to accept that you will not know about all of them. For every variety common to hobby growers, there are countless other closely related varieties that form what banana scientists refer to as the "subgroup". Sometimes, ID'ing past the subgroup is difficult or impossible, because often the same exact clones are present in different areas with different names, or were originally the same, but new mutations have been selected off of it. DNA analysis can help, but depending on many things, it does not inherently see the whole picture, and there are certainly things that it cannot pick up on right now. In short, there exists cases of the same plant with different names, and different plants with the same name. There is no way to officially designate a single name to a specific clone, because this would 1.) require way more time and resources than anyone has and 2.) be nearly impossible for people in one region to change the names of their local cultivars because some scientist said they should.

The solution is that bananas are grouped together into more or less structured subgroups which theoretically contain only cultivars which are all mutations from a single original cultivar (though in practice this is not fully realized yet). If you can ID a banana to the subgroup, that is excellent. You can know a lot about the genetics and general characteristics of the plant you have. For banana breeders (and some botanic gardens) who maintain large collections covering a huge amount of diversity, the original name of the plant as it was acquired is kept and used, along with the subgroup and some other institutional code to indicate that exact accession. You may grow out two plants which are supposed to be the same and they turn out slightly or very different, or you may grow out two plants that are supposed to be different and they look the same, but one may have some unique trait lacking in the other. Instead of making up new names right away, the only practical way to keep them ordered is to just know all you can about your plants. Then, if you see enough other plants that look the same as yours, or enough plants with the same name that are clearly different, then its probably safe to be able to switch the names with little consequence.

For example (this is a real case): I have a plant which was acquired as an AB 'Ney Poovan' but flow cytometry says is an AAB. Safet Velchi (aka Ney Poovan) is a very well known subgroup, and it is known that this subgroup is AB. I have another plant, 'Kunnan', which is supposed to be in the Ney Poovan subgroup, and it is indeed an AB and matches up well with other accounts of Ney Poovan varieties. My 'Kunnan' and my 'Ney Poovan' looking nothing alike, but I trust Ney Poovan cultivars should be like my 'Kunnan'. My 'Ney Poovan' I notice, actually looks exactly like every Pisang Awak (aka Namwah) banana I have seen, but with some unique traits that I have not observed in other Pisang Awak. However, the flow cytometry says its an AAB, whereas Namwah are well documented ABB. There's a bit of a problem here you see, I have a plant which I now am certain is not a Ney Poovan, looks like a Pisang Awak, but DNA says is something else. I threw out the possibility that it is an AB or Safet Velchi subgroup member, I have 3 points against that (flow cytometry, a 2 references of known cultivars), and I've seen enough verified Pisang Awak to feel comfortable in placing it within that group even though the flow cytometry says otherwise (which could be due to a number of things), but I'm still stuck with the 'Ney Poovan' name. I traced this plant back to where it came from, and found out that there was some mixup or mistake when it was collected, and they don't even know what it is. This plant though, unlike other Pisang Awak I've had, has a uniquely textured fruit which is very rubbery, so I am also sure that it is not the same clone as other known Pisang Awak varieties I have worked with. What did I do after all of this work? I renamed it thanks to the help of members here! I'm now calling it 'Gumby Awak' for my personal use. If I gave it for use in future project, I would let them know all of the info I know about it, including the original name, but let them know it is wrong and misleading.

As you can see, these cases can get quite sticky and complex, and thats even with plants that I had some decent reliable background information on. Imagine going through this with plants you know very little, or nothing about. Its going to be difficult and most likely not completely resolved.

This is inherent to working with biological systems and the endless and imperfect strive to order them in a manner convenient to us. It is possible to make some systematic order to it (in the case of bananas, this is the subgroup system), but we must always remember that plants are dynamic and taxonomy strives to be static, and when these two systems meet, there will always be complexity, confusion and loose ends. There is no definitive database of all known banana varieties with every detail about them and how to ID them, some are trying to create that, and it can be a very useful resource, but it will always fall short of what's actually out there because there is simply so much diversity.

For the banana grower, we need to make sure we keep notes on our plants, where they came from and anything else known about it when it is acquired, and pay close attention to how they grow and develop, and most importantly, to compare them to other varieties so we can see the differences and similarities for ourselves. If its a plant worth keeping and you know why, then thats great, and if its not worth keeping and you know why, then thats great too, and thats really all that matters much in the end.

Male flowers can help, but only to certain a extent, and they are not necessarily more distinguishing than any other part of the plant. For phenotypic IDing, the whole plant needs to be considered, including its growth habit.


Everyone who I have talked to from Samoa made it clear that the 'Misi Luki' there is a Mysore. There may be another variety there that is also called 'Misi Luki' or a 'Misi Luki'-like name, but thats why I was curious about what your source is so I can better track down what plant they are referring to.

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.