Musa velutina Seeds - Banana

This adorable little pink banana tree, known as Musa velutina, quickly forms a lush plant with large, very ornamental leaves, imbued with a gentle tropical softness. It produces very beautiful upright flowers in a few months, where pink bract flowers cluster, soon followed by pink, velvety bananas, are very decorative, even when grown indoors. Somewhat frost-sensitive, it benefits from being grown in a large pot, in fertile and moist soil.

Musa velutina is a perennial herbaceous plant with a tuberous root native to India. Belonging to the Musaceae family, it is another species of banana tree distinguished by its reduced size, but also by its very decorative flowering and fruiting. This plant is semelparous, or annual, meaning that it dies after the fruits ripen, and new trunks appear each year from buds carried by the rootstock. It develops a pseudo-trunk (stipe) tinted green and red, made up of the tightly rolled and clasped leaf petioles, but never producing wood. The leaves unfurl their lamina in a feather-like pattern, quickly forming a beautiful tuft of 1.60 m (5 ft 2 in) in height and 1 m (3 ft 4 in) in width.

The plant flowers about 18 months after sowing, in summer, even when grown in a conservatory. The upright flower heads form orange-yellow flowers surrounded by old rose bracts, which quickly transform into bunches of small bananas of 7 cm (2.8 in) in length, velvety, of the same old pink. They are edible, sweet, but contain numerous fairly hard seeds that can damage the teeth and make their consumption rather unpleasant.

Its ornamental interest also lies in its opulent, shiny light green leaves with a tropical charm. They measure between 60 and 80 cm (23.6 and 31.5 in) in length. In winter, when grown in the ground, its leaves disappear at the first frosts but the plant will regrow from the base the following spring. Its hardiness is mediocre (down to -5/-8°C (23/17.6 °F)) for well-established plants. It is preferable to protect the younger plants from severe frost, or to grow this banana tree in large pots.

Still little used in our European gardens, the pink banana tree can be used in beds, as a standalone plant, or placed in a large pot on the terrace, or in a conservatory. In a pot, it is necessary to watch the watering, fertilisation, and to protect the pot in winter. This remarkable plant, like proteas, cannas, bamboos, giant miscanthus or castor oil plants, will give a strongly exotic aspect to our gardens and terraces in temperate regions.