Arisaema sikokianum

[George R Stilwell, Jr.]

Herman,

Your latin is showing again.  It's A. sikokianum.

It does set seed in the U.S. except in my garden. I have many plants,
many flowers, but never any seed. Judy Springer lives about 250 miles
north of here and her plants set loads of seed most years. She has a
whole drift of A. sikokianum - quite a sight I'm told.

It is certainly hardy, growing successfully in zone 5 at least. I believe
it has difficulty with wetness in the cold dormant period. That has
caused some of mine to die early. On the other hand, it does need a month
or two of 40F temperature to thrive. Some of our tropical members are
experimenting with using a refrigerator to provide this for their dormant
tubers. It will not survive in Florida without this treatment.

Commercial seed sources are:

Park Seed
1 Parkton Ave.
Greenwood, SC 29647-0001
1-800-845-3369
1-800-275-9941 FAX
<info at parkseed.com> E-mail
www.parkseed.com  on the web.

I've grown A. sikokianum from Park many times with a germination rate of
90% or better. The one time it fell to 40%, they replaced all the seed
for free. On the other hand, their prices are retail. I don't know if
they sell wholesale but they might.  A. sikokianum runs $6.95 / 5 seed,
$12.50 / 10 seed.

Algy's Herbs <algy at algy.com> handles seed from Matt Sleigh
<B_&_T_World_Seeds at compuserve.com> in the US. You could order directly
from Matt. The last price list I have from Algy shows only
A. sikokianum tubers but I'm sure Matt offers seed as well. They do sell
in wholesale quantities.

Bob Brown at Chiltern Seed, UK doesn't list A. sikokianum in the last
catalog I have.

In any event, there should be A. sikokianum seed in the Fall
distribution.

Ray
GRSJr at Juno.com