wild banana Archives

The elusive Musa jackeyi

Ten years ago I introduced the readers of Green Path to Australia’s two species of wild banana, Musa banksii and Musa jackeyi. At that time I had seen the former growing in rainforest several times but hadn’t tried the fruit. I hadn’t even seen the latter.

I eventually tried the fruit of M. banksii, but I still haven’t seen M. jackeyi. Odd snippets of information have come my way, however, and I thought it was time to pull them all together, supplementing them with what further information I could find online.

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Taste-testing Australia’s wild bananas

A while ago I wrote about Australia’s native bananas, Musa banksii, and said that, “Sometime I will find a bunch of wild bananas ripe enough to try eating one,” adding that, “my expectations [of their edibility] are not high.”

Some things take longer than we expect. This one took eight and a half years.

I have, at long last, achieved my aim – not by finding a bunch in the wild, in fact, but by having some fruit given to me via our local Landcare Bush Garden Nursery. Even then, the nursery didn’t grow them but acquired a bunch through their professional network.

There is no need to repeat what I said in 2014 about where the plants are found in the wild, or their evolutionary history. Let’s move straight on to the fruit as they reached me.