Gabe15

Quote-"Gabe, that is definately not true. "ventricosum" and "maurelli" are totally different plants. Maurelli has a lot of red to the trunk and leaves where ventricosum or often called "red stripe" only has a red stripe down the midrib of the petiole and is otherwise solid green. I also notice here (zone 9) that the greens get a lot larger than the reds."

Let me explain, Ensete ventricosum is a naturally variable species, in the wild, they usually tend to be green with a little red, however, redder plants are naturally occuring and these ones with red foliage are tissue cultured and given the name 'Maurelii', but in reality, it is the exact same species. To answer rsieminski's question also, the reason there are no seeds is because its not a distinct plant, you could plant a whole bunch of Ensete ventricosum seeds and theoretically get a few red ones by chance, but if you pollinate a 'Maurelii', you will get seeds, but the vast majority of them will turn out green because that is the normal color of the species, because again, Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' is just a naturally redder form of the regular Ensete ventricosum.

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