http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/54710/

The banana we eat today is not the one your grandparents ate. That one -
known as the Gros Michel - was, by all accounts, bigger, tastier, and
hardier than the variety we know and love, which is called the
Cavendish. The unavailability of the Gros Michel is easily explained: it
is virtually extinct.

Introduced to our hemisphere in the late 19th century, the Gros Michel
was almost immediately hit by a blight that wiped it out by 1960. The
Cavendish was adopted at the last minute by the big banana companies -
Chiquita and Dole - because it was resistant to that blight, a fungus
known as Panama disease. For the past fifty years, all has been quiet in
the banana world. Until now.

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Garden in shade zone 5 S Jersey USA
Neat place .. http://www.petersvalley.org/