Does anyone know how long it takes for the seed to mature in M. lasiocarpa? These tend to bloom mid-summer for me each year, but I'd like to try collecting the seed from the little fruits this year (clearly visible in the bloom on the left, but in the bloom on the right the viable fruit is already buried under the petals).

I may need to set up additional cold protection if it's going to take a long time.

Paul, what lovely bloom photos of the Golden Lotus Banana (Musella lasiocarpa) I don't grow that plant so I have no idea about seed maturity but two members who have photos in the database @Bubbles and @gingin may be able to offer advice.

Sorry, I never collected seeds.

I have never grown that one either but it seems like the seeds would be fertilized early on and the fruit should ripen not long after the flower dies. Can you remove the flower as it matures and see what is underneath?

The "flower" never really matures. Like most bananas, each petal folds back revealing a set of female flowers on the ends of what will become the fruit. Eventually, the flowers thus revealed become sterile and won't produce fruit. Theoretically, male flowers will come next, but I've never looked for them on M. lasiocarpa. These petals will keep folding back until the banana runs out of energy, but in my experience the stalk will lose its leaves and start to deteriorate before the top flower stops in Musella. On an edible banana (Musa spp.) I would normally cut the flower stalk off at some point.

I dint remember how long it took for the little bananas on mine to ripen, but they’ll get mushy and then you’ll find little black pebble-sized seeds inside.

Yes, that's the advice I'd been given (let it go to mush and then fish out the hard black seeds), but since I have to deal with cold around around here I was hoping for a better time estimate. I expect a hard frost any time in the next month. The stalks on these are finally deteriorating, but slowly, and the flowers show no signs of stopping. I think I may dissect one to see what kind of meristem it has, and check out the condition of the fruit, and then make a decision about what to do with the other one that's still blooming.

So, these plants saw 23F nights before being moved, and are currently in the winter greenhouse (nights >40F), and still they bloom on. The second one has a bloom twice as large as this one, but I was able to get a better picture of the bloom stalk on this one.



You can see its largest pup popping up behind it, ready to bloom next summer. These things are so tough.

So, this thing is still going...



And the little fruits are still clearly visible beneath.

I've got a pup from one of my original plants blooming now. I noticed some seedlings coming up as well. Such cool looking flowering structures on these guys.

So, a year on and I still have a bloom going, though it's finally starting to wind down, I think, and is much smaller than it used to be. Some of the bananas underneath were splitting open, so I pulled them out to investigate. The pulp is creamy and quite tasty, though not particularly sweet. Lots of shiny black seeds.

One of the pups from one of my original mother plants has been blooming for a couple of months now. I noticed over the weekend that I've also got some seedlings coming up from when my 2 mother plants were blooming last year. I just let the seeds fall and do what they do. When it starts to build up to too many (seedlings and/or pups) I dig them and give them to a local friend of mine.