druss

I have just been given 5 bsnanas of purportedly Sri lankan origin the names of them are: Ash plantain, Curry banana, Kolikuttu, itharai and kappal. Now the owner of these got them from a Sri Lankan national who immigrated to perth. I dont have any reason doubt his honesty, but i know these arent officially here. From what I can tell kappal is a type of silk , kolikuttu is either in its own group or silk, itharai a type of mysore, ash alu kessel is a bluggoe and curry is ambu kesel or sour plantain. But i can find bugger all literature thats concise. I only have small pups but will post pics in the id forum once they grow, just wondering if anyone has come across them before.

Paco

Hi Druss,

I believe that the Ash Plantain is in fact the same as the Blue Java/Ice-cream banana. However, the Sri Lankans mainly use it when it is starchy and unripe, when it has that characteristic ashen or powdery blue colour. Forgive me if you already know this, but "alu" means ash and "kesel" means banana in Sinhalese.

My Sri Lankan friends tell me that Kolikuttu is widely regarded as the best, if not one of the best tasting bananas they have. It is their first choice of banana for when they make Buddhist offerings. From what I have been told, it does not travel well to market as the skin splits when ripe and the fruit often fall off the hands quite readily. I do believe it is in the Silk group and don't think that there is an English name equivalent, although I'd be happy to be proven wrong on that point.

Trivia you might find interesting: Bananas in Pyjamas are known as Kolikuttu Sahodarayo (Kolikuttu Brothers) in SL!

Best of luck growing those interesting types!

druss

I found this
[IMG][/IMG]
1. Seeni kesel (sugar bananas)
2. Alu kesel (ash plantain)
3. Ambul kesel (sour plantains)
4. Rath kesel (red banana)
5. Kolikuttu
6. Ambun
Gives me something to compare when mine fruit.

Paco

Here is a link to a page that I came across last year when I was looking into the Alu Kesel and Kolikuttu. It seems that the only image that shows up on the page is the one at the top, however:

https://roar.media/english/life/food...ankan-bananas/

Re: literature that you are searching for - If it helps, I also did a Google search for "anamalu gros michel" and the hit list not only confirmed that the anamalu is our fabled GM, but also via academic papers, indicated the genome groups for some SL bananas e.g. Kolikuttu is a Silk AAB, Seeni Kesel is Pisang Awak ABB.

I hope that helps.