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From: Roy Herold <rrh at GENESIS.NRED.MA.US>
Subject: Arisaema flavum seed questions
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What better way to spend a quiet fall evening than cleaning seeds for the
arisaema exchange.....

Well, you do get to see the seeds up close and personal, and the
characteristics of A. flavum are intriguing. I made a similar observation
last year, but didn't think much of it at the time. This year I decided t=o
do a little documentation.

The feature in question is a fleshy, mushroom-shaped appendage on one end
of the seed. It is only present on very fresh seeds, and dries up and
shrivels away in a matter of days. I am wondering if this is some form of
aril that may be attractive to ants and/or other seed dispersers. I have
never seen this characteristic in the seeds of any other arisaemas, fresh
or dried.

Is there anything in the literature that describes this characteristic? O=r
have our botanists been working from dried specimens and missed it
completely?

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I posted some at:

http://gen.ml.org/~rrh/arflavumseed.html

Comments welcome and encouraged.

--Roy