Genetic and cytological studies ofMusa

Summary

• 1. The Mysore banana seeds more readily than Gros Michel when pollinated byM. malaccensis, but its behaviour is otherwise similar.

• 2. Of nine hybrids raised and studied, six have 44 somatic chromosomes and resemble their female parent in vegetative habit, two are thick-leaved dwarfs comparable both in habit and in chromosome number with similar types raised from Gros Michel, and one with 33 somatic chromosomes is intermediate in vegetative characters between its parents.

• 3. Pollinated by the tetraploid Gros Michel seedling I.C. 1, Mysore gave two hybrids, of which one has approximately 55 chromosomes in its somatic cells, and the other approximately 90. Both are thick-leaved, and the latter is also dwarf and almost certainly sterile.