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Ensete

I am seeking information about species and cultivars of Ensete
cultivated as ornamental plants and their commercial availability.  I
should be grateful for any information on this subject, particularly from
mail order nurserymen.

The situation in the UK as far as I know it is as follows:

In the UK the following are commercially available from a very small number
of specialist nurseries:

1.  Ensete ventricosum - the regular species, green-leafed with a
more-or-less rose-red midrib.

2.  Ensete ventricosum 'Rubra' - supplied to the nursery by an Italian
wholesaler as E. ventricosum 'Maurelii' (possibly from tissue culture) but
confusingly
re-labeled by the retail nursery " to avoid confusing customers ".  Hmmm.

3.  Musa Ensete Ventricosum 'Rubra' - probably just a reddish selection of
E. ventricosum; it looks different to 2 above and is supplied by a
different nursery that propagates the plants in house.  From the point of
view of nomenclature the nursery is obviously trying to cover most of the
bases.

There seem to be two generally recognized cultivars of E. ventricosum,
'Maurelii' and 'Montbeliardii'; 'Rubra' is not a valid cultivar name in
this
instance according to the RHS. 

The New RHS Dictionary of Gardening describes these cultivars as follows:

'Maurelii' - fast-growing; stems tall; leaves large, broad, in compact
rosettes, tinged red

'Montbeliardii' - habit tall, slender: leaves narrow, midrib shaded black.

The European Garden Flora is silent on this subject.

I know that E. ventricosum is a very variable species in terms of its habit
and colouration possibly especially the Ethiopian population of plants.  I
would guess that the cultivars 'Maurelii' and 'Montbeliardii' originated in
Ethiopia and were introduced into European horticulture and named by the
Italians who had colonial interests there.  Is this true?

Clonal cultivars may constitute either i) a genetically uniform clone or
ii) a group of clones genetically dissimilar but consistently distinguished
by one or more characters.  Does anyone know which cultivar type 'Maurelii'
and 'Montbeliardii' fall into?  If it is type ii and from the not very
precise description given in the RHS Dictionary, it would seem as if both 2
and 3 above could be legitimately called 'Maurelii'.

Any information and feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Best wishes.

David Constantine

drc@globalnet.co.uk
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