Botanical name: Musa chunii    Family: Musaceae (Banana family)

Chinese Purple Banana is a slender plant, suckering freely, close to the parent plant, 20-60 cm, suckers many, vertically arranged. It is named for Woon Young Chun (1890-1971), Chinese botanist. Mature pseudostems are 1.2-1.8 m high, 6-9 cm in diameter at the base, light green, covered with old brown leaf sheaths, sap milky. Leaves are 100-120 × 40-55 cm, oblong-lanceshaped, flat at tip, above dark green with purple margin, dull, below medium green. Leaf-stalks 30-42 cm long, bases winged and not clasping the pseudostem. Inflorescences are drooping, flower-cluster-stalks 8-12 cm long, cream with pink tinge, without grooves. Sterile bracts are 1-2, persistent, 20-22cm long, violet below and above. Female buds lanceshaped, convolute. Female bracts 18-20 x 7-9 cm, pale lilac below and above, tip pointed, lifting one bract at a time, curled and persistent. Fruit bunch is lax, with 5 hands and 4-6 fruits per hand, in a single row, individual fruit 6.7-7.4 cm long, 2.5-3 cm in diameter, stalk about 1 cm long, fruits curved, slightly ridged, tip blunt-tipped, with floral relicts immature fruit peel color green with black blotches, becoming yellow. Chinese Purple Banana is native to NE India, Myanmar and China. Flowering: January-August.

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The flower labeled Chinese Purple Banana is ...