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bigdog · 12-20-2008, 02:42 PM

This was just published this past week in the Nordic Journal of Botany by our friend Markku Hakkinen (and H. Wang). Musa zaifui is a small species from Yunnan, and is named after Prof. Xu Zaifu, the third director of the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden.

It's a small plant in section Rhdoclamys, only 1.1 meters in pseudostem height. The flower bud color is violet, much like M. chunii, and the inflorescence is held horizontally. The basal flowers are hermaphrodite. The whole plant looks like a smaller version of M. chunii to me, with some subtle differences. It is apparently very rare also, only found in three populations, with five individual plants with suckers. It isn't clear to me whether that means a total of 5 plants, or 5 plants per population.

Wish I could post the article, but after doing a Google search, I can't find it anywhere online for free.

So another new species from Yunnan! Talk about some serious biodiversity in the genus Musa in that province! It looks as if M. rubinea is set to be published and officially described early next year as well.

12-20-2008, 02:42 PM	#1 (permalink)
bigdog ******* bigdog's Photo Gallery** Location: Gainesville, FL Find me on the map! Zone: 8b Name: Frank Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 2,002 BananaBucks : 745,377 Feedback: 7 / 100% Said "Thanks" 213 Times Was Thanked 1,787 Times in 502 Posts Said "Welcome to Bananas" 131 Times	New Species Just Described: Musa zaifui This was just published this past week in the Nordic Journal of Botany by our friend Markku Hakkinen (and H. Wang). Musa zaifui is a small species from Yunnan, and is named after Prof. Xu Zaifu, the third director of the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden. It's a small plant in section Rhdoclamys, only 1.1 meters in pseudostem height. The flower bud color is violet, much like M. chunii, and the inflorescence is held horizontally. The basal flowers are hermaphrodite. The whole plant looks like a smaller version of M. chunii to me, with some subtle differences. It is apparently very rare also, only found in three populations, with five individual plants with suckers. It isn't clear to me whether that means a total of 5 plants, or 5 plants per population. Wish I could post the article, but after doing a Google search, I can't find it anywhere online for free. So another new species from Yunnan! Talk about some serious biodiversity in the genus Musa in that province! It looks as if M. rubinea is set to be published and officially described early next year as well.