I've been growing quite a lot of Musa "burmese blue" this year, all from seed. The germination rate was very good. These are all growing nicely. As theyre getting bigger, the variation is getting very pronounced.
This is one of my biggest ones, red-green stemmed, red midrib, not waxy pseudostem, and large wide leaves. There are what I considered 'normal', and what I was expecting them to look like.
Another:
More photos of slightly smaller plants (grown indoors)
However, many look a bit different. The look quite a bit paler, the leaves are more narrow and thinner, with more tapered leaes, a little wax on the pseudostem. I havent got so many photos of these though
this is one that got a bit bleached in the sun- theyre normally more of a pastel green:
Compared to another:
More photos of different plants showing quite extreme examples, these 3 were grown in the same conditions, the one on the right is of the paler type.
There are a few which are even more extreme, this one has really long, narrow leaves:
Lastly, these ones are just weird little runts. These are about 5 months old now, at first they were growing incredible slowly. The leaves are quite thin and delicate, but they look quite colourful at least:
.
Is all this variation normal with seed grown Burmese blue? Anyone seen 'real' Burmese blue plants to confirm theyre right?
I dont really know what Musa 'burmese blue' is. Supposedly a type of Musa itinerans, but does this mean a population? a cultivar? Are they supposed to grow true from seed? Whatever they are, they're quite nice plants, and i will keep many of them. But so much variation would make identification a bit of a headache.
cheers,
Andrew