Description

Matoke East African Highland Banana – Matooke Banana

These bananas can be eaten ripe as dessert bananas, but their pulp is rather insipid(lacking flavor).

This subgroup accounts for the majority of bananas grown in Uganda, where they are popularly known as matooke, after the traditional meal made from steamed bananas.

The fruit is harvested green, carefully peeled and then cooked and often mashed or pounded into a meal. In Uganda and Rwanda, the fruit is steam-cooked, and the mashed meal is considered a national dish in both countries.

East African Highland bananas are easily distinguishable from other banana cultivars by the numerous black (or more rarely brown or bronze) blotches on their pseudostems, giving them the appearance of polished metal. The outermost sheath of their pseudostems is a medium green, superimposed over the pink to purple underlying sheaths.

The inflorescence has peduncles covered with coarse hair. The bracts are ovate to lanceolate in shape with outer surfaces that are purple to brown and inner surfaces which are red fading to yellow towards the base. The male flowers have cream colored tepals with yellow lobes. The anthers are pink, while the stigmata are orange.