Musa ORNATA 'ORANGE'

Musa ORNATA 'ORANGE' - Flowering banana 'Orange', Ornamental banana 'Orange', Musa ornata 'Orange'.

Banana is a genus of perennial herbaceous plants in the family Musaceae, uniting about 70 species. Their greatest diversity is found in the tropics of Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands.

These are herbaceous plants with a powerful root system, a short stem that does not project above the ground, and 6-20 leaves whose sheaths form the semblance of a trunk. Height varies from 2 to 12 m (6.6-39 ft). Numerous lateral shoots form around the main stem, one of which eventually replaces the previous one - this is how the plant reproduces. Roots are numerous, fibrous, extending in fertile soil up to 5 m (16 ft) sideways and up to 1.5 m (4.9 ft) deep.

The leaves are large, soft, smooth, oblong or oval, arranged spirally. Their sheaths are rolled into a dense, multilayered fleshy tube - the pseudostem. Young leaves appear inside the cluster, while the outer ones gradually die off and shed, in good weather at a rate of roughly one leaf per week. In cultivated bananas, leaves reach 275 cm (108 in) in length and 60 cm (24 in) in width, and can be solid green, green with dark burgundy blotches, or green above and purple-red below.

When a banana is ready to flower, a long peduncle develops at the growing point of the short stem, passes through the pseudostem, and emerges outward following the leaves. Flowering occurs after 8-10 months of active growth. The inflorescence is a spike-like cluster, with large female flowers at the base, smaller bisexual ones further along, and small male flowers at the tip. All flowers are tubular, white in cultivated forms, with bracts violet on the outside and dark red on the inside.

Fruits develop only from female flowers. Size, color, and shape vary greatly: length from 3 to 40 cm (1.2-16 in), thickness from 2 to 8 cm (0.8-3.1 in), skin yellow, green, red, or silvery, pulp white, cream, yellow, or orange. When unripe, it is hard and sticky; upon ripening, it becomes soft and juicy. In cultivated forms, the fruit is often entirely seedless, and the plant propagates only vegetatively, while in wild forms the pulp is packed with numerous rounded or pointed hard seeds 3-16 mm (0.12-0.63 in) long.

The flowering banana is a small, beautifully flowering species from the Eastern Himalayas and Myanmar, ideally suited for pot culture. It belongs to section Rhodochlamys, which unites the most ornamental bananas of the genus.

The form 'Orange' is one of the most famous among ornamental bananas, and its popularity came from a combination of three qualities: attractive foliage, relative dwarfness (up to 2.5-3 m [8.2-9.8 ft] in nature), and an erect, never-drooping inflorescence with orange bracts. The leaves are green with a pinkish tint and violet veins. The plant begins flowering at a height of about 130 cm (51 in). Small dark pink or cream fruits with numerous seeds are inedible.

Banana seeds are large, rounded or pointed, very hard, 3-16 mm (0.12-0.63 in) long, and mature in the fruit pulp. Their seed coat is extremely dense, so careful scarification is mandatory before sowing: the seed is lightly filed without damaging the embryo. Stratification is not required.

After scarification, seeds are held for 1-2 hours in a 1% potassium permanganate solution, then soaked for 2-3 days in warm water with the addition of a growth stimulant: SUPERthrive, HB-101, Aminozol, Epin, or Zircon, periodically replacing the water with clean warm water. Then they are sown into a loose nutrient substrate of sand and peat to a depth of about 1 cm (0.4 in), moistened from a spray bottle, covered with film or placed in a mini-greenhouse, and germinated in light, but not in direct sun, at a temperature of 27-35 °C (81-95 °F).

Under favorable conditions, the first seedlings appear within a month, but only at temperatures close to 30 °C (86 °F). With temperature fluctuations, main germination can stretch up to six months, and individual seeds may delay for longer than a year: banana germinates extremely unevenly, and the sowing should not be discarded prematurely. Sowing containers are regularly ventilated; waterlogging and drying out are unacceptable. Pricking out is carried out after the formation of 2-3 true leaves, directly into spacious pots.

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Banana is grown as a houseplant, for greening large bright rooms, terraces, and greenhouses. Growing it at home is not difficult; one only needs to know a few peculiarities.

For growth and development, a consistently high temperature of 25-32 °C (77-90 °F) and a sunny location are required. In summer, the plant can be placed on a balcony or taken out into the garden. In winter, supplemental lighting with a grow light or fluorescent lamp is required: a daylight period of at least 14 hours. In room conditions in winter, the temperature is slightly lowered, and several species need true cool overwintering.

In summer, during the growing season, watering is abundant with warm settled water. The root ball should not dry out, but excessive watering is also dangerous: roots rot. The substrate should always be slightly moist. In winter, watering is moderate. High air humidity is desirable; banana responds very well to regular misting with warm water.

The substrate should be loose, fertile, rich in nutrients, and well-drained. Drainage is placed at the bottom of the pot. A large container is chosen right away: during its first year of life, a banana grows very quickly and will need repotting more than once, while later growth slows down and repotting is carried out as needed.

Fertilizer is applied from April to September, once every 7-10 days, alternating mineral and organic fertilizers.

In addition to seeds, banana is propagated by suckers: side shoots are separated along with a portion of the rhizome.