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From: "Jim McClements, Dover, DE z6" <JimMcClem at AOL.COM>
Subject: Candidissimum sex
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In the past there have been threads about arisaema sex changes and what
species are monoecious or dioecious.

Most species are the latter, with flowers of only one sex on the spadix,=and
there is usually a short list of the bisexual, or monoecious species. (Do=es
anyone else get these mixed up as often as I do?!!)

I would like to confirm a previous report that A. candidissimum, while
usually of a single sex, can sometimes be bisexual. One of my white flowe=red
plants from Chen Yi, which was male last year, has flowers of both sexes =on
the spadix this year. This is undoubtedly a transition situation, and I w=ould
expect the plant to be female next year if all goes well.

I wonder how many other so-called dioecious species go through the same
process, and if this may not explain some of the reported instances of
"apomixis", where formation of viable seed occurs in an apparently female
plant with no obvious source of pollen. It would be easy to overlook a fe=w
male flowers on the spadix of a plant that is predominately female.

Jim McClements