No subject

[Robin Bell]

Hello all,
I am a new member of this list....felt I had to join as my
interest in the Aroids generally has grown over the years. I hope I
am doing this correctly in this posting since my main object here is
to see what experience others have had with a particular plant. I
bought the cross Arisaemia sikokianum x takedae from Don Jacobs
several years ago & grew them for several years marvelling at the
height they reached - in my garden about 3 to 3 1/2'. Then, about 6
years ago one of the two set seed, as has also happened to the same
plants that Dan Hinkley acquired, see his book "Plant Collector" for
comments. The original cross, apart from being much bigger than
sikokianum had a greener spathe & a bigger, greener, less knobby
spadix. But the plant was, nevertheless, spectacular. A gardening
friend collected the seeds for me as I was out of town for 6 months
as they matured & the seedlings finally bloomed last year. I knew I
wouldn't be able to tell much that year but this year they are
flowering now & there are some interesting differences showing up in
these offspring. I think that one parent the second time might well
have been sikokianum, which was flowering a few feet away so my seeds
could have been a backcross although, I can't exclude the possibility
that the seeds were an F2 cross between the parents right next to
each other.
The most remarkable difference in the offspring is in plant
height. I have two patches of about 15 - 20 plants each, about 8'
apart & in both the size range is similar, the tallest plants are
about 20" & the shortest, in flower, are about 5". Some, still
smaller have yet to flower. So far as I can tell, conditions in both
plots are similar. The second difference is that most of the plants
look like sikokianum in flower & maybe 1/3 look like the original
cross i.e. the seed parent. This is what makes me think they are b/c
to sikokianum. Overall, there is quite a lot of variation in
spathe/spadix color, but this is not as great as the variation in
height. Finally, one of the bigger plants has the variegated leaf, as
do about 6 others, but this one has a lot of purple in it giving it a
look of three colors in the foliage. I also now have second
generation seedlings from these plants from seed set last year so
we'll see what develops there. I lost both the originals the year
after collecting seed, they developed rot.
I am interested in the experiences of anyone else who has
grown the cross or even better collected seed from them & grown them
on. Dan Hinkley mentions in his book that he collected seed but he
gives no other information about the offspring. This year I am going
to dig up selected plants and shift them to a place where they can be
grown together & I can more easily do my own controlled crosses. I
hope this topic has not been covered before & my apologies to all if
it has. Comments, please?
Robin Bell
Ithaca, NY.,used to be zone 5