Gardening with Wilson

Musa ‘Praying Hands’ is a unique banana cultivar that produces rather unique looking fruits. Unlike ordinary bananas, fruits produced by this cultivar are fused to one another! Two adjacent hands of fruits are also stuck to each other making them look like two hands put together in prayer! When ripe, the fruits can be separated and consumed like a regular banana. They are reported to contain a hint of vanilla!

When it is not in fruit, Musa ‘Praying Hands’ looks like any other regular banana plant. It makes a nice plant to grow in a tropical themed garden as it can grow up to a stately height of about 2 to 3 m tall. Its broad, green leaves growing from the thick and sturdy green pseudostem are relatively wind-resistant and one does need not worry about the appearance of unsightly, thinly shredded leaves that can be found on susceptible banana plants grown in windy areas.

A triploid banana cultivar with an ABB genome (A for Musa acuminata and B for Musa balbisiana), the botanical name of this highly desirable cultivar should be reflected as Musa x paradisiaca ‘Praying Hands’. Depending on the locality, this particular cultivar can be known via a variety of names such as  ‘Uht Kapakap’ in Pohnpei (an island in Micronesia) or ‘Inabaniko’and ‘Ripping’ in the Philippines. It may also be called ‘Benedetta’ in some rare instances.

The Musa ’Praying Hands’ in HortPark’s Floral Fancy has started to produce fruit and do pay a visit to take a closer look at the bunch of fruits produced by this out-of-this-world banana cultivar!