China seeds, refrigeration times, etc

[NAME "Wilbert Hetterscheid"]

Eric asks my comments on his success with raising the germination rate
of Amorphophallus henryi. But am I allowed to answer that in this eminent
arisaemoid company? All I can say in favour of this is that I have hypothesi-
zed that Arisaema is the sister genus of Amorphophallus + Pseudodracontium....
Is that o.k.? Right: I'm glad you found this out Eric. While most phalloid
seed germinates in warm conditions (21C or more) very rapidly, there are one or
two slow ones. It's worth trying your recipe of a slight temp. drop.

As to synchronising aroids, in our climate, even in tropical greenhouse
conditions, 80% of phalloids and several other aroids DO synchronise after
three or more years. Momentarily there is the yearly start of the "flowering"
season in the collection. My guess has always been that this must be
linked to numbers of hours of daylight. The decline of it in autumn apparent-
ly affects all plants, even if they are not then ready to go dormant. A
few autumns later they are synchronised. Whether temperature plays
a role in this I don't know. It is difficult to check that in a greenhouse
where the temp. fluctuates considerably with the sun shining on ot or not
in a rather random mode. But the tropical Arisaemas seem to adapt to the
seasons here too. We have just had a flowering flux in them.

Cheers all,
Wilbert

p.s. Eric, could you also put your henryi result on aroid-l? Thanks