stranger than fiction [ 01] dieithryn na ffuglen
Just a Giant Herb
Banana Dwarf Cavendish
There are thouands of varieties of banana but banana seeds are not very palatable, so the bananas we eat are sterile, without seeds. They are propagated vegetatively – all identically tasty – but unfortunately identically suseptible to disease. The main commercial banana of the fifties, Gros Michel a beautifully creamy fruit, was virtually wiped out by wilt disease.
It was replaced by Dwarf Cavendish which was resistant to the (then) strains of the disease. It is named Cavendish after the Batchelor Duke of Devonshire. His gardener, the legendary glasshouse builder Joseph Paxton, propagated the plant at Chatsworth and this far eastern plant was eventually distributed to the New World.
This is one of the most productive edible plants. The bunches can weigh as much as 40 kilos. The fruit are technically berries and the trunks are actually compressed leaf bases.
Although Dwarf Cavendish will survive temperatures of 13ºC (plus 13, not minus 13) they need to be much warmer (and humid) to flower and fruit. But even if you don’t have Paxton’s Great Stove glasshouse (large enough to take carriages) it makes an attractive houseplant and looks very tropical in a pot outside during the summer months.