More A. triphyllum

[Ellen Hornig]

This evening, my husband and I took a long walk through the woods behind
our property (for some reason, the woods *on* our property are more or
less devoid of interesting plant life, while the steep hillside just
beyond is fascinating), and I had a wonderful time observing the various
A. triphyllum.  Actually, the immediate motivation for the expedition was
to search for more red-veined A. triphyllum; in this quest we were
unsuccessful.  But we did see a lot of other interesting things.

First, I found in one area several A. triphyllum ssp. triphyllum with
5-lobed, rather than 3-lobed, leaves (I don't have one in front of me, but
it's probably more accurate to say that the two outside leaflets are lobed
- I don't think there are five separate leaflets).  Apologies to the
purists, but a couple of these now reside in pots. The lone inflorescence
was typical but unprepossessing, lacking, unfortunately, the very deep
purple (near black) spathe interior prevalent among the other triphyllums
in that area.

A few hundred yards to the south, in a generally uninteresting area, I
started stumbling over A. triphyllum ssp. stewardsonii.  Unlike the
towering two and three foot ssp. triphyllums, these were uniformly
diminutive - 12-15" tall - with very slender, delicate spathes, fairly
narrow leaflets, and the characteristic ridged spathes.  I found a few
specimens that looked intermediate between the two subspecies, but not
many.

The other observation of interest was that, back in the area with the many
ssp. triphyllum, some animal(s) had been both grazing on the leaves and
scraping out the tubers; the forest floor was covered with scraped-out
depressions, some still containing flattened arisaema plants.  As far as I
know, we don't have wild pigs back there, but we certainly have deer, so I
suppose them to be the probable culprits.  Given the other things deer eat
that I wouldn't, I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised.  Has anyone else
seen similar evidence?

So, all in all, a delightful evening in the woods -

Ellen Hornig
Oswego, NY