This is a Blue Java banana also known as the Icecream or the Vanilla Icecream banana.
One name comes from the colour of the unripe bananas, which in some plants is very blue indeed. The other name comes from the sweet, creamy flesh of the ripe bananas. Unlike many “Lady Fingers” the flesh is very firm and creamy. Like most sweet bananas it sweetens and softens as it ripens, but the flesh remains firm and pale long after the peel splits and darkens.
The Cavendish has become the staple banana round the world since the 1950s when the classic banana-flavoured Gros Michel was largely wiped out by Panama Disease. Despite its popularity, the Cavendish does not have the strong “candy” flavouring of the Gros Michel. The candy flavouring refers to the flavour of sweets such as the popular soft banana lollies made by Betta Foods which is based on the Gros Michel. By comparison the Cavendish is considered acidic and mild.
The Blue Java is considered sweet with vanilla or berry overtones but without the candy flavour of the Gros Michel. The Blue Java is plumper than the Cavendish and shorter than the Gros Michel. It also has the classic banana curve, which was almost absent in the Gros Michel.
The Gros Michel was ravaged by Panama Disease (Race 1) in the 1950s and removed from production. A banana plant in a hot house owned by Lord Cavendish was resistant to the disease and was cloned to create the current commercial banana crop. It has recently been found vulnerable to a new race of the Panama disease known as R4. The Blue Java banana is vulnerable to R3 and R4 disease.
Both the Cavendish and the Gros Michel bananas are strictly regulated in Australia. It is illegal to share suckers and plants, and all plants must be purchased from registered providers. The Blue Java is not regulated in the same way, because it is not grown commercially, but may be prone to limits on how many plants any individual can grow in their garden. In Queensland, the general limit is ten plants and thirty pseudo stems per household.
This is the only clump of Blue Java banana. The tall clumps are random “Lady Fingers” provided by friends and family and the short bananas along the southern fence are Cavendish. All the Cavendish banana in this garden are sourced from registered growers. We do not have any Gros Michel bananas.