Bristol Bananas

seen at the Botanic Gardens today during a fascinating tour with the most knowledgeable curator, Nicholas.  He explained that the bananas we eat are hybrids and don't need pollination but that in the tropics bats pollinate the plants using sonar to locate them via the dome shape echo chamber over the flowers.  Having located the flowers the bat holds onto the flower with its 5 claws which make tiny holes.  As these increase in size as the banana grows they damage the fruit and it has to be thrown away so, for commercial use the fruiting branch has to be enclosed in a huge bag to keep the bats out!  There are no bats in UK or Europe that pollinate bananas so that's ok, though these will never grow to maturity in our climate.  In Nepal I have eaten jungle bananas that have pips in them, similar to orange pips.  I don't know if that is how they are propagated but normal hybrid bananas are grown by using new growth from the root system or by man in laboratories!