No subject

[Arisaema Enthusiast Group (AEG) Discussion List (and other=]

hardy  Aroids)" <ARISAEMA-L at NIC.SURFNET.NL> Aroids)" <ARISAEMA-L at NIC.SURFNET.NL>
Sender: "Arisaema Enthusiast Group (AEG) Discussion List (and other=
From: "Jack Lambert (RJL6)" <rjl6 at CORNELL.EDU>
Subject: Re: A. bockii revisted
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="us-ascii"

At Guy Gusman's request, I've summarized information available
regarding Arisaema bockii below.


As background,  it is likely that all seed named Arisaema bockii
distributed by the seed exchanges during the past five or so years is
has come from the descendents of plants grown from seed that Bill
Dilger obtained under that name from the Moscow Botanical Garden.  It
is noteworthy that at one point Professor Dilger referred to plants
grown from that seed as *Arisaema bockii siberica*.  Two minor errors
have crept into the NARGS Seed Exchange listings:  first, the name was
misspelled *A. backii* the first three times it was offered beginning
in 1992 and second, starting with the 1994 listing, the color was
mysteriously and inaccurately listed as purple rather than green.


While Guy Gusman's article in the NARGS Quarterly indicates that the
botanical description of *A. bockii* puts it in the variation range of
A. yunnanense, he does not believe the specimens he has seen grown from
seed originally distributed by the Moscow Botanical Garden are A.
yunnanese but, instead, A. amurense, a species common to Siberia - a
note of interest in terms of the specifier once used by Dilger.


As can be seen on Roy's page,<fontfamily><param>Times</param><bigger>
the flowers on plants grown from MBG seed are a luminescent yellow
green and of stocky form - not lean and elegant like A. tortuosum or A.
yunnanense, not markedly ribbed like A. stewardsonii, not purple or
colorful in character like A triphyllum.  The leaves have five parts
when mature although it takes a few years  to get there, being single
when young, in two and three parts as an adolescent.  The plants are
good doers that readily seed themselves about, form good sized clumps
over time, set obese fruiting heads with copious seed (one to seven in
a single berry) and flower reliably despite late frosts here in Zone
IV, Ithaca, NY.  The fact that they usually emerge two weeks later than
the other A. amurense grown here may be a variation helpful with
respect to hardiness.


</bigger></fontfamily>Nina Lambert