Musa basjoo flowering
I speculated at the beginning of March that my 'hardy' banana, Musa basjoo, might flower this year. I was right. Almost immediately after posting that I noticed a fat bud begin to emerge from the top of one of the pseudostems. A little to my surprise it wasn't the tallest or the thickest of them. Upright at first...
...the bud stem elongates and the fat bud droops below the horizontal. Unfortunately for the display the wind has played havoc with the unfurling leaves of the banana and the opening bud now sits among the wreckage.
The bud then opens to reveal the flowers, clustered at the base of the bracts. .
Each pair of bracts will open in turn to reveal another set of flowers as the season progresses. I may even get small bananas forming though these are not edible.
I've grown Musa basjoo for many years but this is the first flowering. With luck and more mild winters it won't be the last.
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