chong

I looked at the various stacks of bananas, and I cannot see any Praying Hands. It is really not that common in the market places. It just so happens that there were plenty of mats of this variety at Ft. McKinley (Ft. Bonifacio) when we lived there from 1957-1966, though my parents were there until 1970. I guess it was so popular with the original American servicemen residents there at the turn of the 20th century, that they planted them all over the camp.

When we first moved to the camp, and saw the fruits of this plant, we thought how weird this Saba having all the fingers fused together. When we noticed that many of our neighbors there before us also had these, we found out that they simply called them "Sabang-dikit". Then once, when I was at my aunt's banana wholesale store in Divisoria Market, a shipment of Saba contained several dozen hands of PH, which they culled from the group. When I asked my aunt why they were separating them, she said that it was because they could only sell them to processors in the food industry, and not to retailers because separating the fingers will expose the pulp of the fingers at the division. That was when she told me that the "official name" of the variety was "Inabaniko".

It is not a popular variety because you cannot divide the hands for retail (tingê) sale. You have to buy the whole hand. You remember, back home that people may buy just one or two fingers. Also, if the bunch of bananas from the PH will come out similar to Pitangadiego's picture, it will be sold as Saba there. I have never seen a whole hand where the fingers are separated, much less the whole bunch. It is possible that because of the different climatic conditions, the PH can mutate back to Saba. Just conjecture on my part.

Thanks for the picture, Benny. You are making me homesick.

pitangadiego

I have had probably 10-15 bunches of Praying hands over the years. One bunch is pictured in the post above, withough the fusing. All the rest have looked like they are supposed to except for one more bunch that had two hands unfused, and the rest "normal". So, odds are you next bunch will be normal, if it really is praying hands. Whatever causes the fusing is apparently partly affected by weather, culture, etc., and not rigidly absolute from the DNA.

They are fine as a desert banana, just let them ripen up a little bit (not on the green side). They are fun in a fruit salad, because the usually have interesting shapes when you cut them, square, trapazoidal, pentagonal, etc. and tend to be just a touch orange/pinkish - not as white as a store banana.

You will notice that the unfused ones have the same shape and look as Saba, and fused or unfused, they have the same color, bunch style, and (for lack of a better word) scarring at the tips and along the "corners" or edges, which you don't see in too many other varieties. They also both have a kind of chiseled, angular entdto them.

This is the scaring on Saba:

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bencelest

Thanks Chong and Pitangdiego.

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Banana Nut

Rmplmnz

Ha ha...well if this is a successive generation from...

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It is definitely praying hands...

I have had praying hands racemes separate when growing...

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Saba hands are typically closer together..

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Sailfish

Handsome fella, that guy.


Thanks for the plant though!!!!

I have to tell you, I may not have tons of hands on it, but boy to the praying hands (plant) grow well for me!
Beautiful tree to just look at. Thanks again for it!


Oh also, after all this time my Ornico bloomed! Funny thing I was stating in another thread the other day how I had no luck with them, and the beginning of this week....flower

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Sailfish

I forgot to mention, the descriptions of the fruit is dead on!!

The fruit has a slightly different color. I was telling the people we had over yesterday how the fruit was 'creamy' and 'sweeter' than a store banana. I think if I knew how to make bananas foster that they would be ideal. Or banana daquiri's (sp), wait, I think I can make those ;-)

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