Mother Plant Pushing the Inflorescence

The inflorescence is still emerging from the center of the plant's pseudostem. I am so excited that I have to keep myself from tampering with the bud to peek at the forming bananas. Notice the lumps under the bracts. I think these are bananas. I don't know how to distinguish female bananas from the neutral and male bananas. If all those bumps and bulges are female bananas, then Mother Plant is about to make a large quantity of bananas. If not, at least I'll get some bananas, Lord willing. :-)

Banana inflorescence

I'm excited.

Mother Plant

Banana inflorescence update

Gros michel

This is the gros michel plant that I am over wintering indoors. The other is in the drafty greenhouse. I will plant one in the ground and grow the other in a container.

Inflorescence update

I carefully dislodged the emerging bud from the flag leaf.  Nothing major to see, only a pointed tip of a bract.  I am using the grow lights more this week due to overcast skies.

Banana inflorescence

I am marking the plant to see how fast it is growing. Since yesterday, the inflorescence has emerged 1.5 centimeters or 19/32 of an inch. I was thinking the bud would emerge soon. However, I have been looking at the progression of the bud emergence of kcj1219's dwarf cavendish plant and have concluded that I will be lucky to see the bud by Christmas or the end of the year. His plant required about 10 days to progress from my banana's current stage to a fully emerged bud. His plant was outside in a sunnier, warmer climate in late October. My plant is indoors in a sunny window with grow lamps in a temperature-controlled environment.

Inflorescence update

Mother Plant is still pushing out the flag leaf. I can't believe it.  Two years of tending and observations coming to fruition.

Pups

Banana inflorescence

Mother Plant is doing her thing.

Dwarf Cavendish Flag Leaf

Awesome! Mother Plant is ready to flower. It took about two years to get to this point.

Could it be???

I am sooooo excited! I think my first banana, Mother Plant, is about to throw out a flag leaf. The last two leaves have been smaller that the previous leaves. I thought that may have been attributed to my chopping the pseudostem in half to lower the banana form my ceiling. However, the leaf in the center now does not seem to have several layers of leaf material concentrically curled upon itself. It only seems to be one curled layer and looks eerily similar to the flag leafs that I see on Bananas.org. I hope this is the big one Elizabeth. Compare the un-emerged potential flag leaf to the emerged cigar leaf. The cigar leaf has several layers of leaf tissue as evidenced by the few rings around the top of the leaf. The potential flag leaf lacks these rings.