Bract Pigmentation in Bananas

Abstract

SIMMONDS¹ investigated the pigmentation of the bracts of wild banana species and edible cultivars. Of the two wild species from which the Eumusa series of edible bananas are derived² Musa acuminata was found to contain a mixture of delphinidin, petunidin, malvidin, cyanidin, and peonidin, that is, both cyanidin, delphinidin and their methylated derivatives, whereas Musa balbisiana contained only a mixture of delphinidin and cyanidin. Methylated anthocyanidins were absent. The bracts of edible bananas were found to have “broadly, the pigments expected on taxonomic and genetic grounds but show an (unexplained) tendency towards a generally lower level of methylation of the anthocyanidins”¹. That is to say, some cultivars clearly derived from M. acuminata nevertheless only contained non-methylated anthocyanidins. At the time of the 1954 investigation the various geographical subspecies of Musca acuminata³ were not yet clearly defined and little material from Melanesia was available. We now have available in Honduras a much larger Musa collection⁴ of which 526 accessions of Musa acuminata, Musa balbisiana, and their cultivars haying bracts pigmented with anthocyanin have been examined.