A. elephas

[Anne Chambers]

With the recent discussion of growing mediums for A elephas, Ray
suggested I should tell you in what habitat conditions I've seen them in
south-east Tibet.

The elephas form on the north side of the Doshong La pass was in mixed
deciduous woodland and rhododendron - you can see from the new picture
on Roy's page that there was a lot of leaf litter around. I've now met
up with that form on four occasions in south-east Tibet and all have
been growing in moist forest sites.
However, conditions for the elephas form on the south side of the
Doshong La pass (the picture with the strikingly marked leaves
unfolding) were less obviously wooded and very much wetter. This place
is one of the wettest sites in the eastern Himalaya, being directly in
line of the monsoon. It suffers an immense snowfall each year and, in
fact, the valley below is uninhabitable because of this - in June there
is still considerable lying snow and the monsoon rains are starting.

I'm not sure that info helps any, but I always incorporate some home-
made leaf mould into the soil for arisaemas. In spite of that, I had a
problem similar to the elephas disappearance being discussed. Tiny
'second generation' corms with single leaves sprang up spontaneously in
the garden around some A. speciosum v. mirabile which had come very
successfully without problem from a Bhutan seed collection. I potted
them all up, put them in a cold frame and watched the leaves getting
bigger in the summer. Then I checked on their size in January with the
idea of distributing them - gone! No trace of anything left, and it was
not a pest or weather problem, puzzling and annoying.

Thanks to Roy for incorporating these pictures - his page is really most
impressive.

Anne
--
Anne Chambers