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hardy  Aroids)" <ARISAEMA-L at NIC.SURFNET.NL> Aroids)" <ARISAEMA-L at NIC.SURFNET.NL>
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From: "P.Bruggeman" <pbruggeman at WISH.NET>
Subject: Re: A. fargesii  to A. franchetianum?
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Marge,

>>>It appears that you're saying the species is simply hugely variable;

It seems that way based on the plants Wilbert and I grow in our collectio=ns.
They all have something in common but at the same time they all are someh=ow
a little bit different from eachother. Saying that, it is always a little
bit tricky to base an opinion about a species entirely upon cultivated
material. Look at candidissimum for example. The only 2 clones that we ha=ve
grown for many years were grandchildren of the first introductions by
Forrest in the 1920's. It was rediscovered in 1991 and now, thanks to the
Chinese imports, we know it is much more variable than the pinkish or
whitish clone. Both old clones had greenish spathe tubes but pink clones
all-over do exist and so do all green ones (unfortunately no all-whites t=o
my knowledge). Even a yellowish clone seems to exist so because of the la=ck
of new imports, our views on candidissimum were incomplete. It does help =to
know the provenance of the clones in cultivation but more fieldstudies ar=e
required to know for sure. I am afraid the Chen Yi-imports only gave us a
peek at the tip of the ice-berg and that several name-changes might be
possible in the near future.

The problem with franchetianum and fargesii was that the original
descriptions were incomplete, they didn't describe the female flowers.
Intermediate spathe shapes showed that that character was not reliable
either so for us it was then a matter of working with the information tha=t
was available and that gave us no reason to think characters could be
described to distinguish the 2 on. Distinguishing 2 related species becom=es
very hard if the original descriptions don't reveal any major differences
and the living specimen have all possible characters in every conceivable
combination.

>>>that one really can't even hang a "var. x" on any one type??

A variety also needs some (minor) character to distinguish it on (if a
species for example ONLY exists in a clear white and a clear pink form).
Right now I would opt for the use of cultivar names to name the most
attractive nodes in the variation. The problem then would be that a culti=var
needs to be true to the parent so it needs to be vegatively propagated.
However, with the number of offsets franchetianum usually produces I don'=t
see any major problems and with the advances in tissue-culture for
propagating Arisaema I think this solution might be possible.

Pascal