Rediscovery Of Banana Species In Nepal After 200 Years

Musa nepalensis is a species belonging to the banana family Musaceae. This species was first described by Nathaniel Wallich in 1820 AD. On the journey from Amlekhganj to Thankot in the expedition to the Kathmandu Valley in 1820 AD, Wallich made the first observation of it. He brought the plant to the Honourable East India Company's Calcutta Botanical Garden to grow, but he was unsuccessful. Since then, no one has ever been able to witness this Musa species in the wild, and therefore, its existence has been questioned by others ever since Wallich's publication. Even this species’ type, which is a drawing instead of its sample in the form of herbarium specimen, drew attention of the taxonomists. However, a research article was recently published in the prestigious journal, Kew Bulletin, in May 2023 entitled “Ensete nepalensis, a new combination, lectotypification and recognition as a distinct species endemic to Nepal” written by authors Gaurav Parmar, Dipak Lamichhane, Hem Raj Paudel & Anna Trias-Blasi. Fortunately, Ensete nepalensis, whose existence had been doubted, has been rediscovered after 200 years in various locations in the Kathmandu Valley.

The lead author of the aforementioned article, Gaurav Parmar, who is now deputed at the National Botanical Garden (NBG), Godawari, Lalitpur district, and who rediscovered this plant after 200 years was initially assigned to write floral account of the family Musaceae for the Flora of Nepal, including the taxon Ensete glaucum, in 2014 AD. It was a major challenge for him to describe the taxon (i.e., Ensete glaucum) which was thought to be extinct in wild in Nepal. He personally communicated with Prof. Krishna Kumar Shrestha, an editor of the Nepal Flora from Nepal, who advised him to leave the Musaceae family because he would not receive any credit for his work on Ensete glaucum and Musa balbisiana that was only known from the herbarium specimens in Nepal, and rather suggested to work on another genus. Even Keshav Raj Rajbhandari, another editor of the Nepal Flora from Nepal, who inspired him to pursue the science of taxonomy, opined that he had never seen any Ensete species in Nepal. Yet at that moment, the author decided to take up the challenge rather than moving on to another genus.

He kept in touch with all of his friends working in the related field as well as the National Herbarium (KATH) staff, where he worked at that time to get updates on any sightings of wild bananas in the territory of Nepal. Eventually, scattered individuals of Ensete were discovered very close to the author's Godawari workplace after much searching around along with Silwal.

You might think that the issue should have been resolved after the discovery of Ensete species in Godawari. 

But, this Ensete specimen collection was truly where the main issue began. The issue was that the morphology of this Ensete species did not match with the morphological description of Ensete glaucum, the taxon that the author was looking for. He then returned to the location of the plant collection because he thought he may have recorded inaccurate measurements and information on the plant. To his amazement, however, all of the measurements and information he had previously taken were accurate, but the plant’s morphology still did not match with that of E. glaucum.

After that, in 2017 AD, the author went to pursue his PhD in Botany at the Institute of Botany, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. After finishing in 2021 AD, he joined the NBG and on his first day there, he notified Dipak Lamichhane, Chief of the NBG, that he had seen an Ensete species close to the garden in the forest in 2016 AD and would be exploring the area once more for it. But, as soon as he entered the office, set up the workspace, and sat in the chair, he noticed a stunning Musaceae species from his window, which was only about 15 meters away. The author walked right up to the plant and closer he got to it, the happier he became because it was the exact plant he was looking for.

He inquired about that banana species to those people who had been frequently working in that area for very long time, and they claimed it was not planted and should have been growing naturally. After confirming that it was an Ensete species, he told Lamichhane about the Ensete species in the garden and his desire to locate fruiting plant. 

After a couple of days, he took him to the fruiting Ensete, which was also growing naturally inside the garden. But this time, after seeing the fruiting Ensete, he was immensely delighted to have discovered Ensete nepalensis, a species that no living taxonomist had ever seen. After a few months, he obtained its seeds from the ripened fruits for confirmation, and they supported his initial identification.

The author was reviewed a manuscript for the Kew Bulletin when he thought of writing a scientific article on Ensete nepalensis to submit to the aforementioned journal and finally a research article on neotypification of Ensete nepalensis was written and submitted to the Kew Bulletin. When the manuscript reached Mark Watson, the chief editor of the Nepal Flora from UK for the review, he immediately recalled that Henry Noltie had previously informed him that an unattended type specimen “drawing” of a Musa species from Nepal was housed in the Kew archives. 

Watson requested Trias-Blasi to look for the drawing, and she with the help of Julia Buckley could only discover one, which was in a discarded state. The addition of one Nepalese plant type specimen to the Kew Herbarium, which would have otherwise degraded into trash, as well as the discovery of the type specimen of the species for which Wallich had suggested reducing the painter's wage for poor drawing (it was believed that such drawn Musaceae do not exist), both made Watson thrilled.

On Watson's advice, the article was ultimately resubmitted to the Kew Bulletin with “Neotypification” replaced with “Lectotypification” after the finding of a type specimen (in the form of drawing). 

Finally, one new species is added to the list of endemic plants in Nepal after the publication of that research paper, unless it is reported from other countries.

(The authors are scientific officers at National Herbarium and Plant Laboratories Godawari, Lalitpur, Nepal.)