Ensete glaucum

The snow banana ( Ensete glaucum ) is a species in the genus Ensete within the banana family ( Musaceae ). It is native to South and Southeast Asia.

Description

Ensete glaucum is up to 5 meters tall herbaceous plant that does not form a spur. It contains a pale yellow-orange sap. Your thickened at the base of pseudostem is cylindrical and of a yellow-green color, mottled with black and purple with age. The short-stalked leaves are 1.4 to 1.8 meters long and 50 to 60 inches wide, the leaf blade is terete, glabrous, cuneate at the base and bunked at the far end.

The inflorescence is up to 2.5 meters long, the shank cylindrical. The numerous bracts are imbricated and are permanent, per bract, there are ten to twenty flowers. The intergrown Blütenhüllblatt measures 2.5 inches and is slotted in triplicate at the extreme end, the shorter free Blütenhüllblatt is obcordate and has a mucro at its extreme end.

The fruits are bald, black and purple berries that are up to 9 inches long and 3.5 inches thick. They are obovate to oblong - round, tapered at the base and rounded at the extremity with überdauerndem perianth. The smooth, black, spherical seeds measuring about 1.2 cm in diameter.

The chromosome number is 2n = 18

Dissemination and use

The plants are found in China ( Yunnan ), Nepal, Myanmar, India, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and New Guinea. They grow there in 800-1100 m altitude, both wild and cultivated, because they serve as pig feed.

Systematics and botanical history

The species was first described in 1820 by William Roxburgh as Musa glauca and in 1947 transferred to the genus Ensete in by Ernest Entwistle Cheesman.

Evidence

• Banana plants