What on Earth is a Musa Sikkimensis?
Musa sikkimensis is not the new center on your basketball team. And it’s not a capital city of some foreign country. No. A musa sikkimensis is a kind of tree—a banana tree to be more specific. In fact, a musa sikkimensis is a kind of banana tree that is common in the higher altitudes in India.
The Darjeeling Banana
The musa sikkimensis is also known as the Darjeeling Banana tree. It is often compared to the musa nagensium, its closest cousin. The musa sikkimensis, however, is a much hardier and fruitful tree, growing at far higher altitudes than its more terrestrial cousin does. The musa sikkimensis is, in fact, common to the Himalayas in northeast India and Bhutan.
The genus “musa” is the genus of bananas and plantains. Technically, any “musa” is not a tree but a giant plant growing from the ground. It does not have a central trunk, as trees do, but rather grows in bunches of individual shafts, like a bush.
The musa sikkimensis is one of the rarer species of the banana family. It is not even in the top of three, when it comes to common banana producers. Of the four score number of banana producers, it ranks in the bottom fourth in terms of usage. Despite this, it is one of the hardiest of the siblings of the musa family and it has one of the loftiest natural habitats.
The Banana of the Musa Sikkimensis
The musa sikkimensis has yet another name: Hooker’s Hardy Banana. The Darjeeling Banana has started to take on these names as makes its way down from the Indian heights and works its way to other less lofty environments. Gardeners all over the world are starting to experiment with this banana tree to see how well it grows in other environments. So far, the results are mixed. Whereas the full-grown musa sikkimensis is indeed a very hardy plant, its seeds seem to be a bit more sensitive and those in less tropical climates have had less success cultivating the seeds to full maturity.
Outside of India, the Darjeeling banana has found its best success in the experimental gardens of cultivators in California and Oregon.
Where to get Darjeeling banana seeds
If you want to give this exotic banana tree a try, now is the perfect time. Finding seeds is as easy as a mouse click away. You can now find seed packets with groups of six seeds advertised on Amazon.
Although it is still unclear whether this banana will really take off in other climates, at this point, it would not at all surprise us if we started seeing this new ingredient popping up in some of the more experimental concoctions of West Coast chefs. Given the large population of displaced Indian computer programmers in Silicon Valley, the Darjeeling banana just might begin finding a new home in this region of the world.
The Darjeeling plant is traditionally used to sweeten Indian dishes and in desserts. The banana itself is quite tasty in a sweet sort of way.
One can imagine a Silicon Valley restaurant, for example, trading out our plain U.S. variety bananas in a banana burfi dessert in order to add an extra bit of authenticity to the dish and really making a killing. The chef might call this a Darjeeling Banana Burfi and charge extra because of its exotic ingredients. (A burfi, in case you aren’t familiar with Indian cuisine, is a wonderful sweet dessert served after a meal. It is heavenly!)
So if you are an early adopter who is looking to branch out into exotic foods and want to take a chance on a new, hot thing, you could do worse than trying to cultivate the musa sikkimensis. This hardy banana plant may well turn into the newest IT thing in the Indian cuisine circuit and you could say that you were there when it dropped!