Gabe15

There could be some perspective tricks going on, but I agree in that I don't think there is any reason to doubt the photo is real, M. ingens really is a massive plant and I've seen many other photos which also show similar size reference to people nearby. I would love to go see them one day.

I never could get any to germinate, even in vitro, and as it turns out there is actually an endophytic fungi of some sort which lives inside the seeds, making it seemingly almost impossible to germinate in vitro (at least in my experience, as well as that of a veteran tissue culture expert who also tried to germinate them in the 80's following the PNG Musa collection mission by then INIBAP. He also mentioned that the plants were full of endophytes making tissue culture of the meristems very difficult, and ultimately they all failed). I wouldn't doubt the endophyte has some role in it's germination in nature.

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